Ottawa Senators prospect Zack Ostpachuk has been to two world junior championships for Team Canada but also has an ace in the hole that other Sens prospects don't have.
As exciting as NHL fights can sometimes be, they do seem less relevant with each passing season. The one-dimensional enforcer with zero hockey ability is nearly extinct, as are the staged fights they were known for.
Full disclosure: without turning this into a summit on fighting in hockey, I still think fighting has a place in the game, as many do. But fighters today have to be able to play. So, working off the theory that it still matters, how do the 2024-25 Ottawa Senators stack up in that department?
According to HockeyFights.com, the Ottawa Senators fought 24 times last season. Here's a breakdown of the participants and their number of tilts.
Mark Kastelic: 7 fights
Brady Tkachuk: 6
Zack MacEwen: 4
Ridly Greig: 2
Boko Imama: 1
Mathieu Joseph: 1
Dominik Kubalik: 1
Jake Sanderson: 1
Jacob Bernard-Docker: 1
With Kastelic and a few others on the list now gone, that pulls 10 of the 24 fights off the board. Sanderson and JBD might go five more years before their next fight. Greig is always game but doesn't have the size to do much more than hang in there.
What of the newcomers? Nick Jensen has had two fights in his last five years. David Perron's last fight was 14 years ago, getting clobbered by Bobby Ryan. Michael Amadio has one career fight. Noah Gregor has four career fights and lost them all. Tyler Kleven fought only once last season in Belleville.
So that really leaves just Tkachuk and MacEwen to handle the fighting chores this season. Not ideal. You certainly don't want Tkachuk to increase his fighting, and you probably don't want to add too many more games for MacEwen.
Enter Zack Ostapchuk, who made Team Canada's World Junior teams twice. Ostapchuk already has the skating ability and skill to take a run at making the Senators this fall. He was highly noticeable in his first NHL audition last season, even getting into overtime and intercepting a Sidney Crosby pass just moments before the Sens scored the winning goal.
We also know now that size matters to Ottawa's new management. A lot. At 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, Ostapchuk fits that bill nicely.
But the guy can also throw 'em when required. He got into five AHL fights this year and fared exceptionally well in all of them. For all of the talk about how big and tough New York Rangers rookie Michael Rempe was last season (and he was), Ostapchuk took him down handily during a run-in in junior.
Ostapchuk's ability to relieve some of Tkachuk's fighting load will never be the sole reason he makes the team. Those days are long gone.
But if everything else is equal, size and fighting ability might be Ostapchuk's ace in the hole this fall.