OTTAWA — It’s early, but the Ottawa Senators’ biggest concern so far in the 2025-26 campaign is keeping the puck out of their net. They sit third-last in goals against at 3.84 allowed per game. Yet, their 7-1 win over the Washington Capitals Saturday night epitomized the defensive style the Senators aspire to and are capable of, as they gave up only 13 shots.
The start of the season hasn't been pretty for Ottawa in its own zone, allowing 30 goals in the first six games. But that seems to be changing. The Senators have allowed only five goals in their last three games.
Ottawa’s prospects for returning to the playoffs will live or die on their ability to thwart opponents from scoring. Last season was the first time the Senators were top 16 in goals allowed since 2016-17, and guess what? They made the playoffs for the first time since that 2016-17 season.
With that said, let’s analyze their performance on that end thus far and why the Senators' defence isn’t as bad as it initially seemed.
Penalty kill woes
The Senators are featuring a broken penalty kill that succeeds just 64.5 per cent of the time. Unfortunately, their diamond formation hasn’t been elite the past two seasons. It finished 19th in 2024-25 and is down to second last so far this year. Diamonds are forever, they say, and head coach Travis Green has stated the Senators will continue with it.
The goal of the formation is for the short-handed unit to keep players to the outside of the defensive diamond formed around the slot. The issue for the Senators has been defending their diamond without abandoning the aggressiveness necessary for an effective kill. To begin the season, Ottawa's PK has been too passive when it needs to be passive-aggressive.
“I like the idea behind it, but there's also a passive part,” said Nick Jensen about the diamond formation.
“We sometimes get into the habit of going straight to that passive part and not putting any pressure... We want to be aggressive at times, and we weren't being aggressive at the times we're supposed to be (to begin the season).”
Too many times, star players are left wide open. Yeah, that won't work against Connor McDavid.
To its credit, Ottawa has been noticeably more aggressive recently — a perfect 5-for-5 with a man down the last two games.
Of course, the penalty killing woes aren’t all on the skaters. The analytics would tell you the Sens should actually be good on the kill, with the eighth-best expected goals rate in the league while short-handed. But the Senators have the worst penalty kill save percentage. If your goaltending isn’t at its best on the penalty kill, then your kill won’t be at its best.
Ottawa’s been poor short-handed, but not 64.5 per cent bad. There’s lots of blame to go around, but also plenty of reasons to think it’s going to improve as it has recently.
Goaltending
Steal a game, don’t lose it: That’s a goaltender’s job. Be the reason a team wins more often than it loses. Last season, Linus Ullmark reversed the Senators’ goaltending woes with excellent play after seven long seasons. But so far this season, Ullmark has been the reason for Ottawa’s losses more than its wins with a woeful .870 save percentage in eight starts and minus-3.4 expected goals allowed.
In hockey, there is a close relationship between where a team ranks in save percentage and where it ranks in the standings. Last season, Ottawa finished 11th in team save percentage and 12th in the standings. Ottawa currently sits 31st in team save percentage and 20th in the standings.
Good news for the former Vezina trophy winner, however, is that he’s regained his form recently with a .918 save percentage in his last three games while allowing five goals. As you’d expect, Ottawa is 2-0-1 in those games. Ullmark is also — literally — a fighter, stepping up for his teammates in Saturday night’s tilt with the Caps.
Imagine the wide smile on Brady Tkachuk’s face when he saw Ullmark up for the goalie fight against Washington netminder Charlie Lindgren.
When Ullmark is good — which he’s looked closer to recently — so are the Senators.
Finding defensive structure
Last season, the Senators were a stout defensive team that led the league with 10 shutouts. The talk heading into this season was squarely focused on scoring more at five-on-five, where they had finished second last. But sometimes when you look for offence, you forget defence. In Ottawa's first six games they were dreadful.
“Whether or not we're doing the right things in the defensive zone, I don't think we played to that standard yet,” Jensen told Sportsnet.ca early last week.
“In the defensive zone, (we can’t) be on the offensive side of the opponent, because well, if we get this puck going north, (you’re) going to have a two-on-one or three-on-one as opposed to if you're just even with them, and then it's a foot race at that point.”
Ottawa’s defensive philosophy is always to have players behind the puck and be mindful of not jumping up in the rush unless there’s a clear-cut opportunity, because if it fails, they could get burned in the opposite direction. Too often, early on, Ottawa would turn pucks over rather than make the simple plays to create offence. Dylan Cozens getting pickpocketed against Nashville in the Sens home-opener, for instance, leading directly to the opening goal.
After a heartbreaking loss to the New York Islanders, in which Ottawa blew multiple leads due to poor defensive efforts, Green was displeased, calling the team “sloppy”.
“A lot of things that we took pride in last year that we were good at, we weren’t good tonight in,” Green said after that loss.
“What’s your mindset? Are you cheating for offence? Are you on the right side of the puck? There’s a certain style of play that we want. There’s been a lot of talk about creating more offence, but it does not mean cheating for offence. That part of our game is not tight right now.”
Since then, Ottawa has returned to its former selves, allowing only five goals in three games. Ottawa also has the best expected goals allowed rate in the NHL in their last three games at 2.28.
“We’re making progress. We are playing stingy defensively. We’re not giving up grade A chances,” said Nick Cousins after Ottawa’s win in Washington.
“We’re not cheating the game.”
The eye test supports that claim as the Senators' return to their defensive structure has shown dividends on the scoreboard.
Thwarting opponents' time and chances
Interestingly, Elliotte Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast on Friday mentioned how good the Senators are at limiting opponents' O-zone possession time at five-on-five (3:40), ranking them third best in the NHL before Saturday’s win.
One of the best ways to defend is simply not being in your own end.
A perfect example of that was the Senators allowing only 13 shots against the Capitals.
“We could have won 2-1, that’s the mindset you have to have in this league,” said Ullmark after Ottawa drubbed Washington
A possible explanation for the Senators' ability to stifle opponents' O-zone time is that Jake Sanderson and Thomas Chabot are both elite puck movers and create one-man zone exits that make it hard for the opponent to sustain pressure in the offensive zone.
That correlates with Ottawa having the fifth-best expected goals per-60 at 2.22 a game at five-on-five, and the eighth fewest high-danger chances against per game.
All the data suggest that if the Senators clean up their penalty kill, get league-average goaltending and cut down their moments of cheating for offence, then they’ll be a good to even great defensive team. The Senators aren't as bad as their defensive record, but it’s also on them to continue showing us that's the case.
