Seven Senators Prospects Making Noise With Strong Starts To The 2026-27 Season

The Senators have plenty of reasons to feel good about the early returns from their prospect pipeline this season.

Several of the organization's most promising young players are off to excellent starts in 2026-27, including some of the club's recent high draft picks.

Most of these players are probably still two or three years away from making an impact in the NHL, but their early performances offer a promising glimpse of what the future might hold.

Here are seven Senators prospects who have been turning heads in the opening weeks of the season.

When the 18-year-old Nemec was injured in Sens’ preseason finale on a nasty hit from Montreal’s Florian Xhekaj, there was concern that he might not be able to start the regular season.

Nemec quickly removed those concerns.

Few Senators prospects have started the season better than Nemec. Through 12 games with the Sudbury Wolves, Nemec has 20 points, an average of 1.67 points per game.

Nemec was a sleeper at this year’s draft, partly because he spent the first half of last season playing in Slovakia. He came over in midseason and had 35 points in 31 games for the Wolves. If you have a prospect who's averaging 1.67 points per game four months after you drafted him in the third round, you know you’ve done well with the pick.

The Senators selected Jaxon Cover with the 32nd overall pick in June, largely because his potential upside is off the charts. The former roller hockey star has only been playing ice hockey for five or six years, but the young winger is doing his part to justify the Sens’ confidence.

Through his first 11 games with the London Knights, Cover has seven goals and six assists for 13 points. Those numbers represent an encouraging step forward for a player who put up 52 points in 67 games last season.

Cover has one of the more unusual backgrounds of any prospect in the organization. He grew up in the Cayman Islands playing roller hockey before making the transition to ice hockey. Another season working under Dale Hunter in London should only help accelerate that development.

If there's one player who could force his way into Ottawa’s NHL plans sooner than expected, it might be Kasper Halttunen.

The 21-year-old Finnish winger, acquired from San Jose in the William Eklund deal, has opened the season with nine goals and 12 points in 12 games with Belleville. Four of those goals were on the power play, where his quick, heavy shot has made him an ideal Belleville replacement for Arthur Kaliyev, last year’s AHL goal scoring leader. But also like Kaliyev, his skating and defensive play still need work.

Halttunen scored 16 goals and 35 points in 69 AHL games last season, so his early production obviously represents a big jump. If he continues scoring at this rate, it’s going to be impossible to leave him in Belleville for much longer.

The Senators have to be encouraged by what they're seeing from Logan Hensler, considering the serious injury he suffered last season.

The 2025 first-round pick underwent surgery in March to repair a torn ACL and ankle damage. Not only did that cost him development time, but he missed a chance for a deep playoff run that ended with a loss in the NCAA Final.

But the 19-year-old defenceman has returned to Wisconsin’s lineup this fall looking very much like a top prospect. Through six games, Hensler has two goals and seven points, already more than halfway to the 12 points he recorded in 23 games last season. He’s primarily seen as a player who’s a steady defender with excellent skating, so this offensive improvement is a welcome bonus.

Goaltending prospect Lucas Beckman is also off to an excellent start. The 19-year-old has a 6-4-0 record, a 2.38 goals-against average and a .914 save percentage through 10 games with the Cape Breton Eagles. His recent play earned him this week’s QMJHL Player of the Week honours after he surrendered just two goals over a pair of victories.

Selected in the fourth round of last year’s draft, Beckman has already established himself as one of the more promising young goaltenders in the Senators' system. Last season, he posted a 13-1-0 record and four shutouts with Chicoutimi, helping the Saguenéens reach the Memorial Cup.

His early performance this fall should also help keep him firmly in the conversation for Canada's World Junior team next month in Edmonton/Red Deer.

Isayev might be at the tournament as well if Prime Minister Mark Carney hadn’t just banned Russia from competing at the Worlds next month. The 19-year-old Russian winger has spent time at three different levels of hockey this season, including the KHL.

His most impressive numbers have come with Avto Yekaterinburg in Russia's junior MHL, where he has 16 points in just eight games. He's also got four in eight games with Pyshma Gornyak in the VHL, Russia's second-tier professional league.

But man, is he small. He’s listed as 5-foot-9, but it’s not just a height thing. He checks in at just 147 pounds. The Senators will be watching closely to see if there’s a late growth spurt or whether Isayev can still thrive the way guys like Cole Caufield, Alex DeBrincat, and Logan Stankoven have.

The Senators' biggest draft gamble in June was selecting Jonas Lagerberg Hoen with the 25th overall pick. The Swedish winger missed most of last season with a serious knee injury, leaving scouts with relatively little recent game footage to evaluate. But the Senators liked his goal-scoring potential enough (9 goals in 9 games) to use one of their first-round selections on him.

Now healthy, Lagerberg Hoen has split his time between Leksands’ junior club and their second-tier pro team. In an early four-game sample, he recorded a goal and three assists while averaging about 12 minutes of ice time. In six games as a junior, he has two goals and five points.

The 18-year-old is also representing Sweden at the U20 Five Nations Tournament in Czechia, which would indicate he's on Sweden's World Junior Championship roster.

Not every promising prospect blossoms into an NHL player, let alone a star, and a strong October is a pretty small sample size. But for an organization that’s had a shallow prospect pool for more years than it would like, there are plenty of reasons to like what it's seeing so far.

By Steve Warne
The Hockey News Ottawa