Tim’s Time: Can Tim Stutzle Take the Leap this season, to Become the Sens Next Star?
With all the focus on the team’s big time additions and long-term signings of key contributors, Tim Stutzle’s development has flown under the radar
The former third overall selection in the 2020 draft put up an impressive season this previous year, scoring twenty-two goals and thirty-six assists for a total of fifty-eight points. For a second year forward, who just turned twenty years old in January, that’s a very encouraging sign of things that may come in the future. Also consider this fact; Tim Stutzle has been producing these types of numbers as the second center on the depth chart. Josh Norris is the Senator’s number one center, and will be for some time. But that doesn’t diminish the importance of Stutzle’s development, and it certainly won’t stop fans from getting excited watching him possibly grow into an all-star level player.
I don’t believe that last statement is hyperbole either, I believe Tim Stutzle will be playing at an all-star level within the next five years. The numbers back it up too, he has been so productive at such a young age. Stutzle already has put up a fifty point season at a .73 point per game pace. To put that into perspective, there are a few centers in the league that come to mind that match that level of production that early on. These three players will be a combination of up and coming talent, an established all-star, and a player Sens fans are unfortunately all too familiar with.
Nick Suzuki
Let’s start with another young center right in the division. Nick Suzuki burst onto the scene in the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs, and has been seen as a high upside future number one center since. There’s also a really good reason for that. In his first two seasons he put up forty-one points each year, while scoring a total of sixteen points en-route to the team’s Stanley Cup Final appearance. This past season, in his third year in the league, Suzuki scored twenty-one goals and doled out forty assists for sixty-one points total. The talented twenty-two year old also had a career high in faceoff percentage wins, winning just about half he took in 2021-22.
This feels like an obvious start point to compare Tim Stutzle to; as both are young centers on teams with constant moving pieces around them. Point production is also similar, as for their respective careers Suzuki is a .68 point per game player and Stutzle is at .66 points per game. The only glaring weakness the young Sens forward has would be his low faceoff win percentage. At 38%, he has a lot to improve upon to become a true number one center. However, some encouraging news on this front would be that Stutzle improved from his rookie season, where he only won 30% of his faceoffs. With that in mind, let’s move to a young all-star.
Dylan Larkin
Now we’re starting to have some fun. Dylan Larkin is a true number one center for the Detroit Redwings and a player Sens fans would love to see Tim Stutzle turn into in the near future. To get this point out of the way quickly; Larkin was much better on the dot in his first two seasons than Stutzle was. At 41% and 45% respectively, there was always a sign that the Detroit center man would be a tough customer. That has translated to a career 52% win percentage at the faceoff circle, which is quite an accomplishment. Although if Stutzle continues to develop in that aspect, a few 40%+ seasons would at least make him respectable in that regard.
The place Stutzle shined over Larkin’s first two seasons would be point production. The latter put up forty-five and thirty-two points in eighty games each year. Coming out to a .48 point per game pace, that pales in comparison to what the former 3rd overall pick has accomplished to this point. There was a major improvement in his third season though. Larkin scored sixteen goals and forty-seven assists for sixty-three points, a whopping thirty-one point increase from the previous season. Keeping that in mind, Larkin has scored at a .82 point per game pace since the start of his third season. If Stutzle can up his game like Larkin did in his third season, who knows what kind of production the Senators could see from him.
This brings me to my third and final player comparison, and this one may hurt a bit. It’s a cautionary tale that sometimes players develop a bit later than others.
Mika Zibanejad
I’m sure that I’m going to ruffle quite a few feathers with this players inclusion, but it’s a great example for the point I want to make. As many fans remember, Mika Zibanejad was originally drafted by the Ottawa Senators but traded to the New York Rangers along with a second round pick for Derick Brassard and a seventh. At the time of the trade, Zibanejad had just scored a career high with twenty-one goals and thirty assists for a total of fifty-one points.
In a move that was considered at the time as “selling high”, the Sens acquired Brassard who was in his prime at twenty-eight years old and had just put up fifty-eight points that season with New York. He had scored sixty the season prior, so it appeared to be an intriguing trade because Brassard had been so productive in his three seasons there after departing Columbus. This unfortunately wouldn’t be the case, as Brassard never eclipsed forty points in his two seasons in Ottawa before being moved to Pittsburgh.
What did Zibanejad do after being traded? Quite a bit, as he has become the stabilizing force the Rangers desperately needed at center. He has never scored lower than twenty-four goals in his six seasons in New York; scoring thirty in 2018-19 and a robust forty-one in 2019-20. Zibanejad has point produced at a high level (.90 point per game pace in six seasons) while also putting up more than respectable numbers at the dot (50% win percentage). What does all this mean and how does it relate to Stutzle? I’d start by saying be patient if the numbers don’t show up right away. While he has already shown an aptitude for scoring, don’t be disappointed if he stays the same or even regresses slightly next season. Players develop in a myriad of ways, and it’d be a real shame to write off a player before he reaches his full potential; it’s a mistake Ottawa just can’t make again.
Want your voice heard? Join the SenShot team!