Ottawa Senators: Predicting the Opening Day Roster

Centres

Josh Norris, Shane Pinto, Colin White/Nick Paul, Chris Tierney

Many thought that the Senators would address the centre position in the offseason, but it appears they’ve decided to keep the team the same up the middle.

Josh Norris enters his sophomore season as the team’s bonafide number one centre, his tremendous all-around game and offensive flair gives the team a more than capable option at the top of the lineup. The 22-year-old native of Oxford, Michigan was able to collect 17 goals and 35 points in his rookie season, good enough to find himself on the NHL All-Rookie team. The combination of Tkachuk-Norris-Batherson should be a treat to watch every night for Senators fans.

Now this is where it gets interesting, sort of. Shane Pinto took the reigns of the second-line centre position at the end of last season and proved he was quite capable of handling that responsibility despite the small sample size (12 games). His 7 points in 12 games is something you can’t ignore, and hopefully it’s enough to carry the University of North Dakota alumnus onto the opening-day roster.

There have been rumours surrounding the third-line centre position, and whether the Senators would move Nick Paul to the middle in favour of Colin White. If we assume all is status-quo then White will be centring the third-line with Nick Paul most likely on his left flank. The 24-year-old centre had a better season that many people give him credit for last year, White scored 10 goals and 18 points last season, alongside his strong analytics (52.00 CF%).

It’s likely that Chris Tierney resumes his role as the team’s bottom-line centre. He’s valuable on the penalty-kill and he brings a known-quantity to D.J. Smith which I’m sure the coaching staff would be more willing to bet on. With all of the news surrounding Logan Brown, it’s unlikely that he ever factors into this battle.