Chabot’s hot start for Senators softens blow of Karlsson exit
The Ottawa Senators felt they might have already had an eventual, build-in replacement after trading Erik Karlsson.
What almost no one expected was for Thomas Chabot to fill a big chunk of the void left by the team’s captain and star defenceman this quickly.
The 21-year-old sat second in scoring among National Hockey League blueliners heading into Wednesday with 24 points, just two back of Toronto Maple Leafs counterpart Morgan Rielly.
Ottawa’s drama-filled off-season ended with the blockbuster deal that sent Karlsson to the San Jose Sharks in September one day before the Senators were set to hit the ice at training camp.
And while the two-time Norris Trophy winner remained on Ottawa’s roster all summer, Chabot was preparing for what seemed like the only reasonable conclusion to the situation — Karlsson’s departure.
“I had a few talks with the coaches and they told me my role was going to be bigger,” Chabot said after a recent morning skate at Canadian Tire Centre.
The 18th pick in the 2015 draft spent a chunk of last season in the minors, but accumulated nine goals and 16 assists in 63 NHL games, often playing alongside Karlsson.
Just past the quarter mark of the 2018-19 schedule, Chabot has five goals and 19 assists while averaging 23 minutes 27 seconds of ice time, including a team-high 3:16 on the power play.
In a sense, even though Karlsson is gone, the Swede’s echo lingers in the nation’s capital whenever Chabot grabs the puck.
“Just to see him go out there and see the plays that he always makes, just the vision that he has out there, it’s special,” Chabot said of lining up with No. 65 last season. “To be around him and see how he works, how he plays, how good of a player he is, obviously you learn a lot.
“For myself, a kind of guy trying to do like him, pretty similar to him, it was great to just see.”
The usual expectation is for defencemen to hit their stride at 24 or 25, but Sens coach Guy Boucher said his spring and summer talks with Chabot centred around growing up quickly.
“When you see somebody a certain way, that’s how they’re going to be,” Boucher said.
“If you see somebody as a sixth defenceman, they’re going to play like a sixth defenceman.
“His abilities haven’t changed. They were there two years ago. It’s his choice of play.”
While the team has been pleasantly surprised by Chabot’s rise — Boucher said he played his three best games of the season last week despite being held off the scoresheet — Chabot didn’t expect this level of early success.
“I’m just trying to soak it all in,” he said.
“It’s been going pretty well.”