Thomas Chabot must elevate without Jake Sanderson for Senators to make playoffs

OTTAWA — Life without Jake Sanderson means that Thomas Chabot will be living in his teammate's skates for the foreseeable future.

For many years, Chabot was “the guy” as Ottawa's best defenceman, but since Sanderson's arrival on the scene in 2022, he has taken a second-pair seat.

With Sanderson out week-to-week with an upper-body injury, Chabot is reclaiming the role of Ottawa’s No. 1 defenceman. According to reporting by The Sick Podcast’s Jimmy Murphy, Sanderson is dealing with a separated shoulder.  

Chabot would tell you he loves more minutes and a bigger role, although he is likely gutted for Sanderson. 

“I realized that with Jake being so good, I'm not going to get as much offensive time and looks as I did before,” Chabot told Sportsnet.ca last week, before Sanderson’s injury. “But that's fine, and I've said it multiple times, it's about finding ways to contribute.”

Well, that’s just changed dramatically.

“You ask any hockey player if they want to play 30 minutes. I don't think any of us will say no, right?” Chabot said last week.

The conundrum is that Chabot had been playing the best hockey of his career in a second-pair role, with reduced minutes against easier competition. He told Sportsnet.ca that “it’s way better” than 2019-2022, when he averaged over 26 minutes a night for three straight years.

When Sanderson came on board in 2022-23, Chabot’s ice time immediately dropped, and this season he’s averaging the lowest ice time per game since his rookie campaign. Meanwhile, despite playing second fiddle, Chabot has been scoring at the second-highest point-per-game output of his career.

But it’s easier to adjust to a new job if you’ve done the job before.

“Chabby is a really confident guy as well. He knows how good he is,” said Senators forward Tim Stutzle about Chabot’s new role. “Probably early in his career, everybody was saying he was just an offensive guy, but I think he’s been really stepping up his defensive game."

For years, Chabot was overworked, and the Senators' lack of talent and poor defensive play routinely exposed him. Chabot will never be as good defensively as Sanderson, yet he must elevate his defensive game as he’s done in the past two seasons under coach Travis Green.

“When I became the coach of the Senators, Chabot probably had a little bit of a stigma around him. I wasn't sure what to expect,” Green said earlier this season. “'Stigma' might not be the right word, but just if you would have asked me, ‘What do you think of Thomas Chabot?’ I probably would have thought he was a very offensive defenceman that isn't great in his own zone.

“Right from our first conversation, he's been impressive. He changed his game. He stopped playing on the move, and just a little more stop-and-start to his game, not trying to cheat for offence.”

Chabot’s defensive metrics have dramatically improved.

Although part of his defensive improvement, he’d tell you, was due to a specific reason.

“(Playing) 21-23 minutes, whatever it might be, every night. You're able to jump in the rush and make plays in the offensive zone, but also defend as hard as you can,” Chabot said earlier.

He will now try to defend at a high level with an increased workload. In his new role against Vancouver on Monday, Chabot played with Artem Zub, an elite defensive defenceman who compensated for Chabot's shortcomings. The duo was solid together, as Chabot played 24:29 — over two minutes more than his average ice-time this season — but took two undisciplined penalties. You also wonder what GM Steve Staios would have done at the deadline if Sanderson had gotten hurt on Thursday instead of Saturday, the day after the deadline.

Nevertheless, it’s also easier to defend when you have the puck constantly, which is Chabot’s strength.

“At the end of the day, if every time I'm on the ice, I spend a lot more time in the offensive zone, it means we don't have to defend, and I'm doing my job for this team,” said Chabot. “I take a lot of pride in taking possession and hemming teams in their own zone for longer shifts and creating a lot of shots on nets or scoring chances or looks for my team at five-on-five.”

According to Evolving Hockey’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metric, Chabot sits 33rd in that category since the beginning of the 2024-25 season. When Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid sit first and third in that category, you know the statistic has some merit.

His absence was felt this season, too, which speaks to his significance to the Senators, who are 7-8-0 without him this season compared to 25-14-9 with him.

One of the biggest adjustments for the longest-tenured Senator will be running a ninth-ranked power play.

There was a reason Sanderson supplanted Chabot as the first power-play unit's quarterback: he was more effective.

A big part of the Senators' surge to find themselves only three points out of a playoff spot, going 9-1-2 in their last 12, was because their vaunted power play, led by Sanderson, had scored eight goals in 12 games.

The second unit, which was run by Chabot until the Sanderson injury, has produced 10 of Ottawa’s 47 power-play goals this season, but it has struggled of late. The last time the second unit scored was Jan. 18, going 14 games without a power-play goal.

You don’t have to tell Chabot to enjoy the offensive side of the game.

“You always do (enjoy producing offence),” said Chabot. "I mean, we're all hockey players. We're all competitive.”

In all, the Senators need more from Chabot if they are to get into the playoffs without their star defenceman. Sometimes, one star’s dimming light allows another’s to shine.

Adams’ apples

Chabot is known for his fun-loving attitude, whereby he never turns down a joke or a reason to smile.  

When you listen to a Senators game broadcast, keep your ears attuned whenever Chabot is behind his net retrieving the puck from his netminder. Chabot will say thank you to his shotstopper. He told Sportsnet.ca that it first started as a joke with Linus Ullmark, who found it funny when Chabot thanked him for stopping the vulcanized rubber. Chabot decided to continue the playful act.

“I don't feel my age. I don't feel like I've been here for a long time. It feels like we're all still kind of young kids in here and having fun,” said Chabot.

Stats to know

Shoutout to Sportsnet Stats for these three gems:

Sens fans making their presence known

There have been a lot of shots thrown at the Senators' fan base over the years, especially when Montreal fans invade the Canadian Tire Centre as they will on Wednesday Night Hockey (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, 7:30 p.m. ET).

With that being said, it was really cool to see Sens fans take over Vancouver while cheering “Go Sens Go.” Sens Nation is underrated.

PK adjustments

On Jan. 24, Green announced that assistant coach Nolan Baumgartner would not be running the penalty-kill unit; instead, it was placed on the shoulders of assistant Mike Yeo. 

At the time, Ottawa had the second-worst short-handed unit in the league at a clip of 71 per cent conversion. Since the move, Ottawa has the 10th-best penalty kill with an 81 per cent conversion rate, and the Senators have gone 9-2-2. Special teams win games.