We look back at the evolution of a slow rebuild with a glance at five years of opening night rosters.
Despite the first-round sweep this year at the hands of the eventual Eastern Conference Champion Carolina Hurricanes, there can be little debate that the Senators have made huge strides compared to the team they were even just two years ago.
Making the playoffs the past two years and ending an eight-year postseason drought tells you all you need to know about the club's recent improvements.
But a glance at the opening night roster this season compared to 2023 is also rather eye-opening. 10 players from that '23 roster are now gone. And if you take it back to the 2021 roster, most Senators fans probably didn't realize in the moment just how astonishingly far off the mark the team was at that time.
Three years into a rebuild, the kids should have been surrounded by a better supporting cast than this.
That's where we'll begin as we review the Senators' opening night rosters of the past five seasons (opening night ice times listed), starting in 2021.
2021
Anton Forsberg — 60:00
Thomas Chabot — 26:24
Connor Brown — 23:04
Artem Zub — 22:12
Nick Paul — 20:20
Shane Pinto — 19:11
Drake Batherson — 18:53
Nick Holden — 17:51
Nikita Zaitsev — 17:29
Josh Norris — 17:19
Tim Stützle — 16:57
Josh Brown — 16:46
Victor Mete — 16:08
Chris Tierney — 13:19
Alex Formenton — 11:28
Tyler Ennis — 10:15
Parker Kelly — 9:39
Zach Sanford — 9:22
Logan Shaw — 5:05
2022
Anton Forsberg — 59:01
Thomas Chabot — 24:16
Jake Sanderson — 22:21
Josh Norris — 20:42
Tim Stützle — 19:17
Travis Hamonic — 19:12
Alex DeBrincat — 19:06
Drake Batherson — 18:31
Claude Giroux — 17:54
Brady Tkachuk — 17:13
Erik Brännström — 16:58
Artem Zub — 16:02
Tyler Motte — 13:52
Nick Holden — 13:50
Shane Pinto — 13:12
Mathieu Joseph — 12:27
Austin Watson — 9:42
Mark Kastelic — 9:35
Parker Kelly — 8:49
2023
Joonas Korpisalo — 59:25
Thomas Chabot — 25:31
Jake Sanderson — 25:05
Tim Stützle — 21:44
Jakob Chychrun — 20:52
Artem Zub — 19:59
Claude Giroux — 19:48
Brady Tkachuk — 19:07
Drake Batherson — 18:21
Mathieu Joseph — 17:52
Ridly Greig — 16:04
Dominik Kubalík — 14:32
Rourke Chartier — 13:28
Vladimir Tarasenko — 13:12
Travis Hamonic — 13:08
Parker Kelly — 12:40
Erik Brännström — 10:36
Mark Kastelic — 7:33
2024
Linus Ullmark — 60:00
Jake Sanderson — 24:48
Artem Zub — 21:14
Tim Stützle — 19:57
Thomas Chabot — 18:15
Joshua Norris — 18:08
Brady Tkachuk — 17:47
Claude Giroux — 17:38
Tyler Kleven — 16:54
Nick Jensen — 16:49
Travis Hamonic — 16:44
Shane Pinto — 15:59
Drake Batherson — 15:16
Ridly Greig — 15:07
Michael Amadio — 13:58
David Perron — 13:03
Noah Gregor — 12:51
Nick Cousins — 12:09
Adam Gaudette — 9:23
2025
Linus Ullmark — 59:53
Jake Sanderson — 23:10
Thomas Chabot — 22:00
Artem Zub — 20:44
Brady Tkachuk — 19:24
Shane Pinto — 19:21
Nick Jensen — 19:35
Tim Stützle — 19:03
Michael Amadio — 18:54
Ridly Greig — 18:09
Fabian Zetterlund — 16:34
Dylan Cozens — 15:35
Claude Giroux — 15:11
Donovan Sebrango — 14:18
Lars Eller — 14:20
Nikolas Matinpalo — 13:35
David Perron — 12:37
Nick Cousins — 10:46
Kurtis MacDermid — 2:13
Takeaways
1. The core survived. Tkachuk, Stützle, Batherson, Chabot, Sanderson, Pinto and Zub are all still here. Through coaching changes, management changes and roster turnover, Ottawa identified and retained the foundation of its team.
2. The Senators may have finally solved the goaltending problem. The progression from Forsberg to Korpisalo to Ullmark tells a story of an organization that spent years searching for stability in net.
3. The supporting cast is dramatically stronger. Compared to 2021, it's night and day.
Meanwhile, what's most interesting about the 2025 opening night roster isn't how different it looks from 2024. It's how similar it looks. Staios brought huge change in his first season as GM, but this season, not nearly as much.
His challenge is no longer building a playoff team. He's done that. It's turning it into a contender. And to make that happen, change will be required.
So just how different will Staios' opening night roster be in 2026?
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News