Predicting the Senators forward stats for 2021-22
The Ottawa Senators exciting, young core of forwards should provide plenty of excitement when Brady Tkachuk finally arrives back in the nation’s capital. A young forward group containing players the calibre of Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle, Josh Norris and Drake Batherson will have the potential to improve even more than they did last year.
Unfortunately, there will be a big shadow cast over the franchise until Tkachuk is signed to a deal but until that point, they will be fighting an uphill battle with their lack of depth. Their forward lines appear to be looking like this heading into their season opener on Thursday when they play host to the Toronto Maple Leafs:
Tuesday practice lines:
— TSN 1200 (@TSN1200) October 12, 2021
(No Murray out for practice)
Stützle Norris Batherson
Paul Pinto Brown
Formenton Tierney Ennis
Kelly/Sanford Shaw Sabourin
Chabot Zub
Mete Zaitsev
Holden JBrown
Del Zotto Brannstrom
The bottom-six is extremely thin, there’s a chance that both Logan Shaw and Scott Sabourin will be in the opening day lineup, something that needs to obviously change if the team wants to preach that the “rebuild is over”. All in all, this will be an exciting group to follow over the course of the season, potential promotions of AHL players like Egor Sokolov could make for more interesting storylines. However, the Senators can take some solace in the fact that Colin White is sidelined for the next 4-6 months with a dislocated shoulder, and Austin Watson will most likely miss the first month of the season with an ankle sprain. When Watson returns it would give them the luxury to send down players that are in over their head, such as the aforementioned Sabourin.