The Ottawa Senators will open their regular season Saturday night when they visit the Toronto Maple Leafs.
While the Senators are the last NHL team to start their schedule, their Battle of Ontario rivals already have split a pair of home games.
The Senators did name a new captain, defenseman Thomas Chabot, before their opener. He replaces Brady Tkachuk, who was traded to the Florida Panthers in June.
“I think it was an easy choice,” said Senators coach Travis Green. “Thomas was always at the forefront. But I think it was important that we just saw our group together — whether it was for two or three weeks. It was evident before camp to us and as camp went on that Chabby would be the guy.”
The 10th-year veteran was a popular choice among his teammates.
“I would have taken him any day of the week,” said forward Tim Stutzle. “So I’m just super happy that they made that decision, and I would have told them the same thing. Chabby’s been through it all here. He went through a lot of hard times here, and he always stayed here. And he was always the best. He’s never in a bad mood, and always brings his energy. Plays through so many injuries. Never lets down his teammates. So if there’s one guy who deserves it, it’s definitely him.”
The Senators, who missed the postseason from 2017-18 through 2023-24, lost to the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs last season.
“We’ve talked to our group about our long-term goals,” Green told the Ottawa Citizen. “We’ve been in the playoffs two years in a row now. Do we want to win the Cup? Yeah, that’s our goal, but we don’t sit here and talk about that every day. We talk about how we do that. There’s a process to getting to that stage and it starts by getting through camp.”
Stutzle, who had a team-best 34 goals last season, Drake Batherson, Dylan Cozens, Shane Pinto, Claude Giroux and newcomer William Eklund form the core of forwards. Chabot anchors the defense. He has 335 points in 569 games.
After dropping their opener 3-2 to the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday, the Maple Leafs came back to defeat the New York Islanders the next night. It was the first win as Toronto’s coach for Jim Hiller.
“It was great to see that type of a win,” said Hiller, who replaced Craig Berube. “You like to see the easy ones, trust me, when you are standing behind the bench, but you appreciate the hardness, the blocked shots, the desperation at the end. Those always feel pretty good, too.”
Second-year wing Easton Cowan, 21, had a goal and an assist for the Maple Leafs on Wednesday.
“What I like is, he’s really taking this seriously at a young age,” Hiller said. “It’s a positive for us. I like his trajectory and how mentally he really wants it. He’s an exciting young player.”
Anthony Stolarz stopped 26 shots for Toronto against the Islanders. His former teammate with the Panthers and teammate again, Sergei Bobrovsky, started the opener for Toronto.
Stolarz was retained after two goaltenders from last season, Joseph Woll and Dennis Hildeby, were traded.
“It’s a vote of confidence in me,” Stolarz said. “Look at the turnover, they wanted to keep me around. It’s exciting. I want to be here, I want to play here.”