Stuetzle set to make his debut
Senators set to kick off abbreviated season with double header in Battle of Ontario
On with the show. This is it.
The Ottawa Senators' training camp has concluded, and when they gather Thursday at the Canadian Tire Centre to prepare to face the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday night, the focus will turn to preparing in earnest for the first two rounds of the Battle of Ontario, which continue Saturday.
General manager Pierre Dorion, assistant GM Peter MacTavish, coach D.J. Smith and the rest of the hockey operations staff set the club's 23-man roster and six-man taxi squad they'll be allowed to carry during this shortened 56-game schedule.
The Senators will play in the all-Canadian North Division.
There are 12 faces on the roster that didn't start the season with the club last year.
Of course, there will be no shortage of excitement with the NHL debut of No. 3 overall pick Tim Stuetzle. He's been skating on a line with veteran Derek Stepan and newcomer Evgenii Dadonov this week because Smith wants to make sure the 18-year-old Stuetzle is comfortable.
“My goal was to make the team,” said Stuetzle after Monday's scrimmage. “I'm so excited to be here right now. If I'm going to play (Friday) … it's going to be a dream come true. It's an unbelievable feeling to be here.”
While there were no surprises when the roster was released Wednesday at noon, the one notable name not among the extra players is centre Logan Brown. By all accounts, Brown, 22, didn't have the kind of camp that was expected of him, and that's why he was assigned to Belleville.
There's no shortage of debate around Brown among the fan base, but if he's going to suit up for this team this season, he has to earn a spot. The same goes for winger Alex Formenton, who was among those skating with the Belleville group Wednesday as well.
The emergence of veteran Artem Anisimov in camp and Josh Norris's standout effort squeezed Brown out of the mix in the middle.
It would be no shocker if
Brown is moved by the organization in the coming weeks because this was his fifth camp and he still didn't live up to expectations. A first-round pick in the 2015 draft, Brown changed agents in the off-season and the belief in league circles is that it was done to try to help facilitate a trade.
There's no question Brown has reached a career crossroads, and if the Senators move him, they'll want a good return.
Yes, Dorion will be asked about Brown's future during his availability with the Ottawa media Thursday, but it's also time to turn the page and talk about who's here. The Senators have maintained they want to get out of the NHL's basement this season and be competitive in the newly formed North Division.
After finishing at No. 30 last season, the Senators want to start showing progress.
“We definitely want to take a step forward,” alternate captain Thomas Chabot said. “The last three years I've been here, we haven't had a great season. We've added a lot of pieces, whether it's younger guys or older guys. We added some pieces that are going to help us. We want to build that together.
“This season's definitely going to be different, playing against the same team a lot, but if we come out the way we want to play by being in the other team's face, not giving them a lot of time and using our speed, we'll definitely have some success. We're looking forward to it. We're really confident on what we've got in this locker-room and we want to start the season the right way.”
If that's to happen, the club has to improve defensively. The Senators are hopeful the addition of forward Austin Watson along with defencemen Josh Brown and Erik Gudbranson will make them tougher to play against. The club wants its opponents to have to pay a price to get to the net.
That will be paramount with the club facing the likes of Toronto's Auston Matthews, Edmonton's Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, Vancouver's Elias Pettersson, Calgary's Sean Monahan and Winnipeg's Mark Scheifele every night.
The challenge of Matthews, Mitch Marner and John Tavares in back-to-back games against the Leafs will be a strong challenge to start.
“We definitely want to work on the little details of getting ready to get back to playing in the NHL,” Chabot said.
“The Leafs are a very talented team, they've got a lot of talent upfront. We've got to find ways to break the puck out, talk a lot more on the ice and just little things that going to help us going into our first game.”
The taxi squad can be changed at any time, but the expectation is the club will stick with this group until it returns from its first road trip to Western Canada early next month.