32 Teams in 32 Days: Ottawa Senators

How good they will be remains to be seen, but they should be fun. Even that is progress.

• In Today’s 32 Team outlook we examine the Ottawa Senators who seem to have a taken a big step forward this offseason with a real effort to get better.

• Be sure to check out yesterday’s look at the Edmonton Oilers and one of the league’s most underappreciated players.

• Thank you again to everybody that has subscribed ($5 per month, $30 for the year) and enable me to continue writing for now. It is greatly appreciated. Also thank you to those of you that have given it a trial run to see if you like it. I hope you do!

In 2017 the Ottawa Senators were a double overtime Game 7 loss in Pittsburgh away from making what would have been an absolutely shocking run to the Stanley Cup Final. Nobody saw it coming.

But instead of being a launching pad for sustained success, it proved to just be a one-year blip that disappeared as quickly as it happened.

Start with the 2017-18 season the bottom quickly fell out on the franchise. Despite making the early season blockbuster trade for Matt Duchene, the team badly regressed and then finished with the second worst record in the NHL, just five points ahead of the Buffalo Sabres.

That was when the fire sale started.

One by one the players that helped carry the Senators on their 2017 playoff run were shipped off for prospects and draft picks. Erik Karlsson. Mark Stone. Mike Hoffman. Derick Brassard. Ryan Dzingel. Jean-Gabriel Pageau.

It sent the Senators on a short-term path to oblivion where they were consistently one of the worst teams in the league. Between 2018-19 and 2021-22 the Senators cumulative record has been the fourth-worst in the league (ahead of only New Jersey, Detroit, and Seattle — if you can even count that latter given their one season in the NHL) with little-to-no progress in each season.

That might finally be starting to change, and for the first time since that cinderella playoff run there is reason for Senators fans to have real optimism about their team and the direction it is headed in.