What the Ottawa Senators Need to End NHL’s Third-Longest Active Playoff Drought

In what feels like a never-ending rebuild, the Ottawa Senators continue to meander through what’s now a six-year Stanley Cup Playoff slump. It happens to be the third-longest active skid in the entire league. Three's the charm? Hardly.

The Detroit Red Wings hold the second-longest drought, missing seven straight times. But, ah, no one can touch the good ol’ Buffalo Sabres. They’re mired in an NHL record 12-year playoff skid that’s probably left a trail like a slug.

But for all three teams, things are looking up. The Senators have been a butterfly, half-stuck in their cocoon. You can clearly see the finished product is going to be beautiful if they find a way to emerge.

But don’t bother making predictions. Don't start playing around with mock line pairings. Don’t devote your summer to a surgical analysis of Ottawa's roster.

Here's the full list of the biggest things the Sens need to get to the playoffs next spring: 

1. They need to get healthy and stay healthy.

(End of list)

All 2024 NHL playoff projections for this team need to be stamped hard with a giant asterisk and a caveat (in bold font) that reads, *Assuming they can stay healthy.

That’s obviously true of any team in any sport, but before the NHL injury bug takes any requests for this fall, the Senators are still in the process of undoing the little jerk’s damage from last season.

Players who began this off-season still dealing with injury include:

Josh Norris (another shoulder surgery, January 2023)

Thomas Chabot (torn ligament and cracked bone in wrist, April 2023)

Anton Forsberg (tore MCL in both knees, February 2023)

Jakob Chychrun (lower body, March 2023)

Ridly Greig (shoulder, sternum, March 2023)

Parker Kelly (cracked kneecap, March 2023)

Tyler Boucher (shoulder surgery March 2023)

Travis Hamonic (everything hurts, April 2023)

Players like Norris, Chychrun, Greig and Boucher can all be comfortably filed, without any debate, in the folder marked "Injury Prone."

Players who’ve come back from injuries in the past year include:

Joonas Korpisalo (Returned from hip surgery November 2022)

Shane Pinto (Returned from shoulder surgery September 2022)

Players that skittish fans are worried about:

Everyone. Especially centremen and their shoulders. (July 2023)

The good news is that GM Pierre Dorion declared last week that all players are on target to be fully healthy for training camp. Of course, on the other end of town, Ottawa’s football fans were treated to that same off-season declaration about their star quarterback.

I don't know why you had to bring that up. 

Anyway, it can't be stressed enough that every team deals with injuries. Always. But after what's happened the past couple of years, the coaching staff would be thrilled to settle for just an average number of those big injuries – the ones that pretty much crush your soul and morale. 

Is that too much to ask?

And let’s get really crazy. What if the injury bug were to – heaven forbid – completely skip the Ottawa Senators this year?

If that happens, then the sky’s the limit for this team.

Related articles:

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