Stephen Halliday, Carter Yakemchuk, and Andre Burakovsky have all reclaimed numbers that have served them well in the past.
The Senators have announced three player number changes for the coming season.
Centre Stephen Halliday is going from the number 83 he wore last season to the number 34 that he regularly wore in Belleville. Given his choice, he might have chosen 19, the number he wore at Ohio State, but that belongs to Drake Batherson, the second-longest-serving active Senator.
Defenceman Carter Yakemchuk goes from 58 to 26. Yakemchuk wore 26 in Belleville last season during his first year as a pro and also wore it in junior with the Calgary Hitmen.
The number was actually available when Yakemchuk was drafted in 2024. Erik Brannstrom was the last Senator to wear it before Yakemchuk arrived.
Only five players in Sens history have had any interest in 26, and two of them were goalies: Darren Rumble (1993-94), Shane Hnidy (2001-04), Joey Daccord (2019-21), Dylan Ferguson (2023), and Arthur Kaliyev (2026).
Finally, newcomer Andre Burakovsky will wear number 95. The only other player ever to wear 95 in Ottawa was Matt Duchene, who had it during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.
Burakovsky wore 28 last season with the Chicago Blackhawks, a number that Claude Giroux has firm possession of in Ottawa. But even if 28 were available, Burakovsky probably would have switched anyway. 95 is his birth year, and he wore it for six seasons before arriving in Chicago last season, where Ilya Mikheyev had already laid claim to it.
For old-schoolers like me, it's still astonishing to see forwards reach for jersey numbers like 34 and 95 when legendary numbers like 7 and 9 are just sitting there, completely unwanted.
Times have definitely changed.
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
