Better luck next year: The Ottawa Senators are back ... but what's next?

They made the playoffs. That is the first step. Now can they take the next step?

Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the next team to be eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs: The Ottawa Senators.

It has been a long road back to respectability for the Ottawa Senators, but they are finally starting to make some serious progress on it.

Following their stunning Eastern Conference Finals run back in the 2016-17 season, the Senators roster was systematically gutted down to the studs with a series of trades that started a full-scale rebuild. Some of those trades worked out better than others. The ultimate result was seven long and frustrating years out of the playoffs and no real serious contention for a playoff spot during that time.

As some of their draft picks started to pan out and progress, and after some significant outside additions in recent offseasons (specifically forward Claude Giroux and goalie Linus Ullmark) the Senators finally turned themselves back into a playoff team this past season. They put up a fight against the Toronto Maple Leafs in a six-game series loss, but ultimately fell short from advancing.

It was still progress. Important progress.

But now that they have set the baseline expectation for just simply making the playoffs, the question now becomes how they can take the next step and actually start advancing when they get there.

There is a strong core in place at the top of the roster, and while they have yet to make a significant addition this offseason they did make some smaller upgrades that could end up paying off in a big way.

Sometimes it’s not about what a team does well that defines it or its success.

Sometimes it’s all about that one big weakness that is holding them back.

In 2023-24 it was goaltending.

They addressed that with Ullmark and it paid off in multiple ways, not only by solidifying a position of weakness, but also weakening a divisional rival (Boston) whose spot they ended up taking in the playoffs.

Their weaknesses in 2024-25 were a little more subtle. They already addressed one.

They still might need to take a big swing before puck drop in October to address the other one.

Let’s talk about all of it.