The Senators’ 24-year-old has continued to move up the league's rankings of top defensemen.
Jake Sanderson is movin' on up.
On Sunday, the NHL Network unveiled its annual ranking of the league’s Top 20 defencemen and the Senators star checked in at No. 8.
Considering the company he's keeping, that's an impressive slotting.
Sanderson is coming off his best offensive season so far, putting up 54 points in just 67 games. He led the Senators in average ice time (24:50) and plays in all situations.
He finished 10th in Norris Trophy voting, where, let's be honest, voters only really care about point production. That's probably because it's ten times easier than evaluating a player's ability to defend, along with the other virtues that make a defenseman great.
But Sanderson does it all, and there really isn't an obvious weakness to speak of.
He quarterbacks the power play, swiping the top role away from Thomas Chabot a couple of years ago. He kills penalties. He can skate the puck out of trouble, defend against the opposition's best forwards and play nearly 25 minutes every night without looking fatigued or overwhelmed.
His skating is off the charts, almost literally. NHL Edge says his max skating speed hit 24.37 MPH this year, and that puts him in the league's 99th percentile.
Meanwhile, his offensive game has steadily caught up to his defence. Sanderson's 54 points last season worked out to 0.81 points per game. He was a Lady Byng finalist after taking only eight penalty minutes all season, and he was an Olympic gold medalist.
That's a lot of assets to pack into one player.
The seven men ranked ahead of Sanderson are Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes, Zach Werenski, Rasmus Dahlin, Miro Heiskanen, Lane Hutson and Matthew Schaefer.
Rightly or wrongly, points matter the most in these D debates, so there probably isn't much of a case yet for putting Sanderson ahead of the top four.
Makar and Hughes have established themselves as two of this generation's premier defencemen. Werenski just won the Norris Trophy after an 81-point season, while Dahlin had 74 points and finished third in Norris voting.
After that, things get a little more interesting.
Heiskanen is one of the NHL's most complete defencemen and remains a reasonable choice ahead of Sanderson. But the gap certainly isn't enormous.
And if we're talking about who you'd want for one game in every situation right now, you could make a very legitimate argument for Sanderson over Schaefer or Hutson.
Before Montreal Canadiens fans fill up the replies, consider this.
When Team USA put together its Olympic roster this year, it chose Sanderson, not Hutson. Then, when they needed an injury replacement, they chose Jackson LaCombe, not Hutson. So you can call it homerism if you like, but when Team USA went looking for the very best players, they made the same call.
Speaking of rankings, as the Sens consider their next choice of captain, there's also the question of how Sanderson stacks up against Tim Stutzle, Claude Giroux, and Thomas Chabot
Sanderson is their best player. He hasn't hit his prime and already looks like a player they could build their identity around.
His leadership wouldn't be loud, but after Brady Tkachuk and all the "noise" around him, what would be more welcome than a chill captain who leads by example?
Sanderson plays enormous minutes, takes on the toughest assignments, rarely puts his team in a bad position, and he's Ottawa's most important player. Maybe the first round turns out differently last spring if Taylor Hall didn't knock him out of the series with a shoulder to the head.
With the wanderlust trend that's hit players like Tkachuk and Alex DeBrincat in recent years, some Senators fans have worried on social media that Sanderson will eventually want out as well, simply because of his American birth certificate. But Tkachuk had family reasons to want out, and DeBrincat wanted to play back in his hometown in Detroit.
Beyond those special circumstances, as long as their team doesn't get completely run into the ground (see: Eichel, Larkin, Q. Hughes), most American players aren't in a hurry to get out of Canada.
As for Sanderson, he isn't likely to ask for a trade or start a podcast. Besides, if you do buy into the American thing, he's actually half-Canadian, and not just by passport. He spent a number of his teen years living and playing in Canada, and no other Senator is currently locked up longer in Ottawa than Sanderson.
The NHL Network believes there are still seven better defencemen in hockey today. By this time next year, we're betting there will be even fewer.
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
This article was first published in The Hockey News. For more Sens coverage at The Hockey News, click on one of the Sens headlines below:
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