The Senators worked with their two new power play units on Sunday as they prepared to face Montreal in the Kraft Hockeyville game in Trois-Rivières on Monday.
The Senators are beginning to look more like their regular-season selves.
With their first pre-season game set for Monday night against the Montreal Canadiens in Trois-Rivières, the bulk of the Senators' probable opening night roster skated together (23 skaters, 3 goalies) in Sunday practice at Canadian Tire Centre.
Artem Zub, Warren Foegele and Kurtis MacDermid are currently out with injuries. Jordan Spence was also absent Sunday for what the club described as a maintenance day.
The Senators then travelled to Trois-Rivières on Sunday ahead of the Kraft Hockeyville game at Colisée Vidéotron. The event honours nearby Saint-Boniface, Quebec, which won the 2025 Kraft Hockeyville competition. The game is the Senators' preseason opener, and they will face the Montreal Canadiens.
Head coach Travis Green offered a first look at how his new power-play units might be assembled without Brady Tkachuk, a fixture on the top group for many years.
The new-look first unit featured Jake Sanderson up top with forwards William Eklund, Drake Batherson, Tim Stützle and Dylan Cozens.
Cozens is the obvious candidate to take over Tkachuk’s grunt work around the net. At six-foot-three and more than 200 pounds, he offers the size required to battle for position, screen the goaltender and pursue loose pucks around the crease.
Ottawa’s second unit initially featured two defencemen, pairing Thomas Chabot with highly regarded rookie Carter Yakemchuk. Claude Giroux, Shane Pinto and Andre Burakovsky completed the group.
It was an interesting mix of experience and youth on the blue line. Chabot is the longest-serving active Senator, while the rookie, Yakemchuk, is attempting to make the team here in his third camp. He'll definitely get some good looks on Monday since Chabot stayed back home to be with his wife, who is due to give birth any day now.
The Senators also experimented with a one-defenceman alignment on the second unit. Fabian Zetterlund and Stephen Halliday rotated into the group in place of Yakemchuk and Burakovsky, giving Green several possible combinations to consider.
The competition for roster spots remains tight. Halliday, Yakemchuk, Sammy Blais, Philip Tomasino and professional tryout Ben Hutton are among the players attempting to claim one of the club’s very limited openings.
The Sens already have 14 forwards, six defencemen and three goaltenders on one-way NHL contracts. Halliday and Yakemchuk can be sent to the American Hockey League without requiring waivers, which works against them if there's a close decision to be made.
But the injuries to Zub, Foegele and MacDermid could create extended opportunities for the players of interest near the cut line.
With a shortened pre-season schedule, those auditions begin in earnest Monday night.
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
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