Tim Stützle has made this an easy call at the top of the Ottawa Senators’ 2026 Top 25 Under 25 - even if it wasn’t much of a runaway.
For the fourth straight year, Stützle takes No. 1 in the annual summer series, but this was the tightest race yet. The staff split 4-3 in his favor over Jake Sanderson, and for the first time the readers had Sanderson ahead.
The case for Stützle starts with the production, which is back where Ottawa wants it. After scoring 24 goals in 2024-25 and 18 the year before, he bounced up to 34 goals and 49 assists in 80 games for the second point-per-game season of his career.
The old knock on him was that he didn’t shoot enough. That conversation has changed.
It’s not just the finishing, either. Stützle remains the best skater among the Senators’ forwards, and that’s the kind of advantage that changes how defenses have to play him.
His straight-line speed in transition opens the ice, and his ability to move laterally in the offensive zone lets him keep possession alive until coverage breaks. That usually ends with him creating something for himself or a teammate.
That same skill set makes him a nightmare to handle without hooking, grabbing or tripping. Per NaturalStatTrick, he drew more minor penalties than 93% of forwards this past season. Among that group, the only player who took fewer penalties than Stützle while also outproducing him at 5-on-5 was Connor McDavid.
The defensive side is where the picture gets more complicated, though the progress is real. Stützle came into the league as a defensive liability, which is hardly unusual for an 18-year-old, but he’s improved every year and is now a clear positive for Ottawa overall. Still, there’s a difference between being effective with the puck and being reliable without it, and that’s where the finer questions live.
LB-Hockey’s new Defensive Dimensions tool, built with data from AllThreeZones, helps separate those pieces by showing players in categories like defensive zone puck management, PK defence, and in-zone suppression. Using that view, Ottawa’s two Selke candidates, Shane Pinto and Mike Amadio, both land in the Top 2%, but with different strengths: Pinto is better at defending rush chances, while Amadio is steadier and less prone to mistakes when handling the puck in his own end.
Stützle is solid in those areas, but not at the same level as those two. He also trails players such as Drake Batherson, Ridly Greig, Dylan Cozens and Claude Giroux in that department.
Even so, he’s become a strong penalty killer, he hunts back hard, and he uses an active stick. There’s still plenty of room for growth in his own zone.
That’s part of why the gap between Stützle and Sanderson was so narrow. One staff vote went to Sanderson because, in that view, he’s closer to being the best player in the league at his position relative to Stützle. But there’s still a real argument that Stützle can climb into the Top 5 among NHL centers.
The names at the top are daunting. Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Macklin Celebrini sit on the MVP podium for the foreseeable future.
Aleksander Barkov and Jack Eichel are ahead of him too, though they’re seven and five years older, respectively. Beyond that, there’s a group that includes Auston Matthews, Wyatt Johnston, Tage Thompson, Robert Thomas, Connor Bedard and Leo Carlsson, but none of those cases are airtight for reasons ranging from Matthews’ down year to Thompson’s weaker defensive play to the poor management of the Blackhawks and Ducks.
For Stützle, the next step is as much mental as physical. He’s tougher than he used to be, but he still has moments where frustration shows up after a mistake. In a 6-1 loss to Dallas, he coasted briefly after a defensive-zone turnover, and that lapse led to a goal against that likely would have been stopped if he had gotten back into the play immediately.
Ottawa’s roster fit is the other obstacle. The talent is there, but the pieces around him haven’t been tailored to what he does best.
His most common 5-on-5 partners were Giroux and Batherson, who scored at a lower rate than Giroux’s third line with Pinto and Amadio, as well as the second line of Cozens, Greig and Mark Stone’s former tenant. Too often, Stützle had to act as his own breakout, his own transition engine and his own zone-entry specialist, only to find no clean option once he got in.
That meant circling back and resetting to the blue line - useful if you’re protecting a lead, less so when you need offense.
There may be a fix in house. After Stützle, Ottawa’s best rush-chance creator is Cozens, another center, which opens the door to moving him to the wing and giving Pinto a bigger role on the second line.
The Senators also added William Eklund, their biggest offseason acquisition, though not their tallest. The former 7th-overall pick in 2021 isn’t a pure goal scorer, but he can absolutely help Stützle with breakout play, transition work and playmaking. Andre Burakovsky drew a cooler reaction, but he’s still a better transition attacker than most of Ottawa’s forwards from last season.
So the path forward is pretty clear: Stützle has to keep growing, and Ottawa has to build the right support around him. The defense worked because the pieces fit. If the Senators can find that same kind of chemistry up front, Steve Staios may have something special cooking.
In Other News...
Maple Leafs Prospects Faced A Chaotic Test Before Camp Cuts
A recent Maple Leafs prospects game offered a rough, revealing look at players fighting for attention before camp cuts, with Ottawa fans getting a familiar face in the building as the management group checked in on the action. Associate coach Daniel Alfredsson was among those watching, and the focus was on a wide mix of forwards and defensive players trying to make a case in a setting that can turn messy in a hurry.
Luke Haymes helped add to the chaos when he finished a rebound created by Blake Smith, one of the cleaner moments in a game that was otherwise more about evaluation than polish. Toronto also held first overall pick Gavin McKenna out of the lineup as a precaution ahead of main camp, leaving the prospects on the ice to sort through the pressure without the biggest name in the mix. [Read more 🡒]
D.J. Smith Suddenly Sits At Center Of An Oilers Story Ottawa Will Watch
The Oilers have reshaped their hockey operations picture in a hurry, and one name with a familiar Ottawa connection has landed right in the middle of it. Edmonton is expected to add a new coaching voice behind the bench, while also sorting through leadership questions on the ice after Darnell Nurses departure left an alternate captain spot open for one of the clubs veterans.
For Senators followers, the part worth watching is D.J. Smiths place in that mix. He has been linked to Edmonton in a prominent associate role, and the Oilers are also working through how best to ease Alex Formenton back into NHL pace after his time in Switzerland. It is the kind of front-office and bench-structure story that can move quickly, but it already has enough Ottawa ties to make it worth tracking. [Read more 🡒]
Ottawas Search For Brady Tkachuk Goals Now Includes One Rookie
Following Brady Tkachuks departure, the Senators have been looking for answers on the scoreboard, and the front office has already tried to help by bringing in William Eklund and Kasper Halttunen. For Ottawa, the focus is obvious: replace some of the punch and presence Tkachuk brought, while giving the lineup a little more finishing touch from younger talent.
Halttunen, acquired from the San Jose Sharks, arrives with a reputation for scoring in big moments after leading the London Knights in playoff goals during two championship runs. He knows the expectations in Ottawa are different now, and he has made it clear he wants to keep growing into that role, which is exactly the kind of internal option the Senators need to develop as they sort out who can help carry the offense next. [Read more 🡒]