Training camp is still more than a month away, but after a busy free agency, the Ottawa Senators roster is set. Steve Staios’ focus on adding veteran leadership to his team hasn’t left much room for hope, with only one defensive position and a forward still to be sought.
Tyler Kleven is the current favorite to make the opening night defensive tackle roster. Over the past two seasons, he has only dressed for 17 NHL games. Still, he looked good in those brief looks and has the best combination of experience and strength of any other defensive prospect in the Senators’ farm system. Putting him next to University of North Dakota teammate Jacob Bernard-Docker, with whom he won an NCAA championship, should be a recipe for success.
Kleven stands out among the weak Senators prospect pool, but there are a few other names to watch. Unlike last season, when the team was locked in so hard they couldn’t leave unless they were injured, Ottawa will be free to call up players for a long-term look with the team. Who else could find themselves with a roster spot at the end of the season?
Zack Ostapchuk
The Senators’ fourth line is less defined as it has been following the departures of Mark Kastelic and Parker Kelly. Given that the team currently lacks consistency and consistency in their bottom six, that could give a leg up to Zack Ostapchuk, one of the strongest prospects in their program right now. As a rookie in the American Hockey League (AHL) last season, he logged 47 penalty minutes, 15 of which came in the majors in fights. He’s not the best player, but when Ostapchuk steps up, he’s rarely taken down, even by the likes of 6-foot-8 Matt Rempe. That could ease the burden on Brady Tkachuk and Zack MacEwen, Ottawa’s two remaining tackles.
But what gives Ostapchuk a leg up on making the Senators’ opening night roster is his ability to contribute in multiple ways on the ice. In his seven-game NHL debut last season, he was tasked with facing Sidney Crosby in his first game until he caught a pass toward his childhood idol, saying afterward, “I just wondered if that was coming to him. , it won’t be right. I thank God that I knocked that down.” After returning to the AHL, he averaged 1.6 goals against per 60, one of the lowest points on the entire team, while averaging about 10.5 minutes per game.
Most prospects aren’t as productive as juniors when they turn pro, but Ostapchuk finished his first season with 17 goals, the fourth-highest total in Belleville. That’s not far from his Western Hockey League career high of 26 goals, and he could easily beat that in 2024-25. But he was humble in his assessment of his first season, telling the St. Albert Gazette following his NHL debut, “It took me about 10 games to get into it, but I think I adjusted well, and frankly, a lot. fast and boys are strong and things like that. We’ve been working a lot on my acceleration and a lot of small details like training… because I have to be good on the dot. And you’re just playing under pressure because you don’t have as much time as you did when you were young, so you have to think fast and make plays quick.”
Stephen Halliday
Stephen Halliday quickly became one of the most interesting prospects for the Senators after his transition to the professional ranks. After two seasons with Ohio State University, where he was almost a player for every game, he joined Belleville, playing in 10 games and scoring five assists to finish the regular season. However, in the playoffs he was the best player for the Senators, scoring two goals and nine points in seven games.
However, Halliday is more than just a one-dimensional offensive presence. Even in his brief appearance in the AHL, it was evident that he was thinking about the game differently than most of his teammates. According to Belleville head coach David Bell, “His skill level is at a high level, and he’s getting better and better every game. I know everybody looks at the goals and the passes, but he’s winning face-offs in the D-zone, getting D-zone coverage, and winning stick battles that he hasn’t had in the last 10 or 12 games. He’s getting better every day and learning the league, if he learns the speed of the league, he’s going to be a very dangerous player.”
Related: 3 Senator Bounce-Back Candidates for 2024-25
Although he played in just 17 games before the Cleveland Monsters ended Belleville’s season in the second round, Halliday enjoyed being on the road. In an interview with Murray Pam of Full Press Hockey, he was in good spirits and joked, “It was really nice to score again in the playoffs…Guys were giving me a kick when I didn’t score in the regular season – that he was just passing. No, it was nice to score goals, and obviously, to play meaningful games in the playoffs was really nice.”
While it may be challenging to know where he will ultimately fit on the Senators roster, there is no doubt that Halliday is on the right track to making the NHL. It’s unlikely he’ll make the team in training camp, especially if Josh Norris is healthy, but there’s a good chance he’ll be given some games in Ottawa during the season. Given his ability to quickly adapt to tough competition, if called upon, he can make it very difficult to give back to the kids.
Jamieson Rees
Last season couldn’t have been worse for Jamieson Rees. After scoring 14 goals and 42 points in 65 games with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves in 2022-23, they decided not to renew their franchise agreement through the 2023-24 season, allowing them to become a fully independent AHL franchise, the first since -1994-95 and leaving the Hurricanes out of the farm team. That left a number of players without a home for the upcoming season, leading the Hurricanes to loan out their top prospects to other franchises. Rees was sent to the farm team of St. Louis Blues, the Springfield Thunderbirds, where it was thought he would play an important role with his new team as he had three AHL seasons under his belt.
Unfortunately, because he was not a Blues prospect, Rees was dropped in favor of St. After 30 games, he had just three assists, a far cry from his previous total, which prompted him to be reassigned in February to the Charlotte Checkers, an affiliate of the Florida Panthers. That was a little better; after seven games, he had one assist, putting him on pace for four points in 30 games. That’s when the Senators came calling, sending the Hurricanes a sixth-round pick for a former second-round pick. There were also growing pains with Belleville, but in just 14 games, he doubled his offensive totals, scoring four assists before the end of the season.
That convinced them that Rees still had gas left in the tank, and the team signed him to a one-year, two-way contract. Although he missed significant development time last season, he showed that he plays a style that is very familiar to the Senators, combining speed and offensive power with toughness and aggression. That could explain several of the senator’s hopes. Still, Rees is probably more similar to Ridly Greig, who emerged as the dark horse for the Calder Trophy early last season and won over fans with his pointless slapshot against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Like Halliday, he’s unlikely to make the team in training camp, but a midseason call-up wouldn’t be unexpected, and Rees has the experience and ability to stick around for a while.
There are a number of other prospects that fans can expect to see this season, such as Xavier Bourgault, Maxence Guenette, and Angus Crookshank, and each has a chance to play significant minutes in the NHL. As for the rest of the Senators farm system, most still have a few seasons before competing for an NHL roster spot. That’s true if you trade most of your top picks; there are several options for filling out the list. Thankfully, Staios has made several good moves that should result in a well-rounded farm team.
Source link
