As the Ottawa Senators move toward the 2026-27 season, a few big lineup decisions still hang in the air. Opening night will bring answers, but first the club has to sort out some real questions about who fits where, who is ready now, and who may force his way into the picture.
The most intriguing one might be William Eklund. There’s a strong belief around his game, and for good reason: he brings speed, a strong shot and real playmaking touch.
The expectation is that he’ll get first-line shifts, which makes the fit with Tim Stutzle and Drake Batherson especially interesting. The key question is whether Eklund lifts the offence around him.
The sense is that he will, but that still has to play out on the ice.
Then there’s Jaxon Cover, who turned heads last weekend and may have changed the conversation around his timeline. He posted 7 points in the prospect tournament and capped it with a coast-to-coast game-winning goal.
A 32nd pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, he suddenly looked more like a top-10 selection than a late first-rounder. He’s probably headed to Penn State for a year of school and development, but if his season goes the right way, he could arrive in the NHL sooner than expected.
Kasper Halttunen also made a strong impression at the tournament, though his path looks a little different. His shot already looks NHL-ready, but the rest of his game still needs work.
At 21, he has time to sharpen things up in Belleville, and another year in the AHL could help him take a real step. If that happens, he might be in line for NHL games late in the season, even if the season starts elsewhere.
On the blue line, Artem Zub’s absence creates an early opening that could shape the start of the year. It was announced earlier this month that he’ll miss the beginning of the season while rehabbing a lower-body injury.
That matters because Zub’s presence helped drive the Senators’ top defensive numbers. Jordan Spence looks like the most natural option to absorb those top-pairing minutes, and he’s already shown he can handle that kind of role when injuries hit last season.
Mantipalo also has a chance to make his case for a steady spot, and it will be worth watching how Travis Green handles the lineup without Zub. Green did win a game with four defencemen last year, so he has already shown he can manage a thin backend.
Carter Yakemchuk is another name to watch closely. He’s been steady with Belleville, putting up 40 points in 54 games last season before earning a call-up to Ottawa.
In four games with the Senators, he had two points, and he also made an impact in the playoffs with two points in one game. With Zub sidelined, Yakemchuk has a real shot to push his way into the opening lineup once preseason is done.
In Other News...
Travis Greens First Camp Decisions Say A Lot About Ottawas Ceiling
The opening days of Senators camp have looked less like a scramble for jobs and more like an early test of chemistry. Travis Green is spending his first practices sorting out combinations and seeing what fits, a sign Ottawa is approaching this season with a different kind of urgency after back-to-back playoff appearances and a clear desire to keep climbing in the Eastern Conference. The coach has stressed having options, but the bigger point is that the roster already feels settled enough for him to focus on how the pieces might actually work together.
Some of the early groupings hint at the sort of top-end talent Ottawa wants to lean on, with Tim Stutzle alongside Andre Burakovsky and Drake Batherson as one of the more intriguing looks. Greens approach suggests he is trying to identify which alignments can drive play rather than simply fill out a lineup card, and that matters for a team that no longer wants to be judged by just getting in the door. The next step is figuring out whether these looks can translate from camp drills into the kind of balance and depth contending teams usually need. [Read more 🡒]
Senators Blue Line Move Raises New Concern About Artem Zub
The Senators have brought veteran defenseman Ben Hutton into training camp on a professional tryout, a move that adds some extra depth to a blue line already dealing with a familiar kind of uncertainty. Hutton arrives with more than 400 NHL games on his resume since 2015, giving Ottawa a seasoned option to look at while it sorts through the back end in camp.
His presence also puts a sharper focus on Artem Zubs status, with the defenseman currently unavailable. Ottawa is already trying to map out its early-season picture on the blue line, so any added help has a purpose beyond just filling a practice spot, and this latest move suggests the club still has questions it wants answered before camp settles in. [Read more 🡒]
Artem Zubs Camp Setback Creates An Early Senators Concern
The Senators are heading into camp with an early dent in their blue line plans, after the club confirmed Artem Zub will miss the first two weeks because of a lower-body injury. For a team trying to settle its defensive pairings and get on the ice with some continuity, any delay for a veteran minutes-eater matters, even if it comes before the real games begin.
There is at least one piece of reassurance for Ottawa in that Zub avoided surgery, which keeps the situation from sounding worse than it is at this stage. Still, the setback pushes back the start of his camp work and leaves the Senators waiting a little longer to see how quickly he can ramp back up once he is cleared to return. [Read more 🡒]