Senators to Open the Season Minus Key Players

The Ottawa Senators are set to raise the curtain on the 2023-24 campaign Wednesday evening in Raleigh, NC, versus the Metropolitan Division champion Carolina Hurricanes.

Under new ownership, the team is expected to challenge for a post-season berth, but when the season opens, they’ll have to start minus two of their top three centres. Josh Norris remains day-to-day after “tweaking” his shoulder in a captain’s skate at the Canadian Tire Centre a week prior to Senators training camp.

While restricted free agent Shane Pinto is still just that, an unsigned restricted free agent.

And then there’s the upper-body injury sustained in Saturday’s final preseason tilt to forward Zack MacEwen. MacEwen did not skate Tuesday prior to the team heading out on the road.

Not to mention, generally, a club would be able to carry an extra forward or defenseman, dress an 11-7 lineup, or recall a player from their American League affiliate, but the Senators are currently only $62,620 below the salary cap ceiling. They’re unable to do either. There’s a strong possibility the team will play one player short if MacEwen isn’t healthy enough to suit up.

The silver lining for Norris is he’s in a day-to-day situation. As head coach D.J. Smith acknowledged, if the injury was long-term, it would’ve been prudent to add him to LTIR already. A player placed on LTIR must miss 10 games or 24 days, whichever comes first.

Smith is surprised as anyone that his number two centre has yet to play,

“I said right from the get-go, and I’m trying to be as transparent as I can; I never thought that Josh would not play Game One. I expected to get him in four or five exhibition games, which was my plan. And you know, when I get here in the morning and they say he can’t go, it’s shocking. I know again he wants to play, but they have to clear him, and they have to tell him I guess that he can play, but we’re waiting, and we’re hopeful that he’ll be back shortly,” said Smith post-practice Tuesday morning.

The Pinto situation is becoming dire. Owner Michael Andlauer referred to it as the “Pinto Pickle” in one radio interview a few weeks ago. The pressure is mounting for General Manager Pierre Dorion to get the 22-year-old signed. But in order to do so, the Senators GM must perform some cap maneuvers.

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Dorion has few options. The simplest is to add Norris to LTIR, but this means the centre will be forced to miss multiple games, as mentioned – something the team would rather not do. The other is to make a deal in order to free up at least $2.3 million to $2.5 million of cap space, permitting the club to ink Pinto to a contract and carry one extra player.

Whichever option Dorion chooses, it has to be completed quickly. The Senators can’t afford to have another slow start.

Their record shows that the club has been out of the Atlantic Division race for the past three seasons before it really started. If the Senators possessed a .500 mark over their first 20 games last season, they would’ve made the playoffs.

2022-23

7-12-1

2021-22

5-14-1

2020-21

4-15-1

Smith knows his club needs to get out of the gate stringing together wins, “The biggest thing is, is make sure you’re playing the right way. The results will take care of themselves. We’ve got to have our special teams clicking right away. We’ve got to be giving up very little inside the slot right away. There’s a lot of things we’ve worked on throughout exhibition that we’ve been good at that have to transfer – not necessarily that they always transfer into wins right away, but you want this team to be rolling as good as long as we can. Hopefully, we get Josh back and “Pins” back and we can hit the ground running.”