Ottawa Senators Training Camp Update - September 20th

On-ice sessions are underway at the Ottawa Senators training camp, and the roster has been split into three groups, with NHL players being divided between the first two.

While there isn't much we can surmise from this, we may be able to project a few lines and pairings with a bit of good old investigative journalism. If you're not overthinking during training camp, what else are you doing?

• Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle, Claude Giroux, David Perron, and Ridly Greig are listed in the first group, while Josh Norris, Drake Batherson, Shane Pinto, and Michael Amadio are listed in the second. Within these groups, core and depth players alike are skating together – for example, Tkachuk and Stützle are with Nick Cousins, Norris and Batherson are with Angus Crookshank, while Greig and Perron are with Tyler Boucher. We could see those pairs of Top-9 forwards more often as camp progresses, but all of this could be subject to change as early as today.
• What's more interesting is that Thomas Chabot is in the same group as Artem Zub, not Nick Jensen as we expected. Despite Zub and Jake Sanderson being the most effective combination Ottawa can roll out, it may be more beneficial to pair Chabot with a known commodity in Zub, knowing Sanderson is capable of playing with most NHLers out there.
• Tyler Kleven is listed in the first and second groups, which could be a typo. Thinking about it, however, doesn't it make sense? He's the clear frontrunner for the left side of the third pair, and there are a lot of options as to who's going to play with him – Jacob Bernard-Docker, Travis Hamonic, and Calen Addison, to name a few.

Here are a few more things to note regarding participants at this year's camp:

• 2024 39th-overall pick Gabriel Eliasson will be playing in the OHL this season, but it won't be with the Niagra Ice Dogs. Not long after selecting the 6'7 left-shot blueliner in the CHL Import Draft, the club reportedly has a deal in place to trade him to the Barrie Colts, which will go through on September 26th (the OHL has a rule in place to prevent imported players from being traded before then).
• The Senators have added a sixth goaltender to their training camp roster, signing Dustin Tokarski to a professional tryout agreement. The 35-year-old has played in 80 career NHL games, including 29 in 2021-22 with the Buffalo Sabres, in which he had a 10-12-5 record and an .899 save percentage. It's upsetting that Ottawa could've unironically used him last season. I suspect he's here now to ensure that if either Linus Ullmark or Anton Forsberg suffers an injury, Mads Søgaard and Leevi Merilainen will remain in Belleville.
• Chabot has been skating with recent 7th-overall pick, Carter Yakemchuk in the early goings of camp.

• Lastly, here are the media availabilities of Tkachuk, Giroux, and Ullmark.