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If anyone had doubts, going into this season, that Jake Sanderson was a true #1 defenseman in the NHL, his performance in 2025-26 should have ended them for good. The young defender set new career highs in goals and average time on ice, despite the fact he was sidelined with an injury in March, which led to him playing a career low 67 regular season games this season and probablyreturning before he was back to full strength.
If not for the injury, Sanderson might have been in serious conversation for the Norris trophy; he was occasionally named as a dark horse candidate before he got injured, and got a few votes regardless, finishing tenth in Norris voting with four fourth place and four fifth place votes. He also played a key role on the Gold Medal winning American Olympic team, not that any of us want to think too much about that.
Sanderson has been instrumental in turning the Sens into an analytics powerhouse. He’s amazing in transition and one of the best defensemen in the league at both individual and on-ice expected goals. With him on the ice, the Sens completely controlled play this year, to the tune of a 55.90% expected goals share, according to Natural Stat Trick. You could make a case for the Sens having been the best defensive team in the entire league in 2025-26, having conceded the fewest expected goals in the league at 5 on 5, and being top 3 in every other defensive category. Sanderson, who had the highest average ice time on the team, took on most of the tough matchups, as his pairing with Artem Zub was used as the shutdown pair. He’s a really smart player with great defensive instincts, as this compliation of his defensive highlights shows:
Despite being trusted with these difficult matchups, Sanderson managed to end the season with just 8 penalty minutes, an accomplishment impressive enough to earn him a third place finish in lady byng voting.
We shouldn’t overlook Sanderson’s ability to avoid taking penalties as an asset to the team. He’s a key piece of Ottawa’s penalty kill, with the highest shorthanded TOI per game on the roster, so it’s important that he’s pretty much always available for the penalty kill. It also means that he’s able to take the puck away from opposing forwards without resorting to stick infractions or interference, which takes a lot of talent. It’s something a lot of defenders struggle to do, including several of Sanderson’s teammates.
Although people rightfully focus on Sanderson’s defensive play when talking about his contributions to the team, we shouldn’t overlook his contributions on offence. The Sens get most of their offence from carrying the puck into the offensive zone and maintaining offensive pressure, rather than from one-off scoring chances, and Sanderson is one of the best on the team at doing that. He was top-20 in the league in all offensive stats among defencemen. He has a good enough shot that he can finish his chances, too, which is probably why he was called on to run the powerplay more often than not.
Sanderson’s postseason was unfortunately even shorter than the rest of the team’s, as he was injured in game 3 and missed game 4 with a concussion. He was mostly fine in the 2.5 games he did play, despite the team getting outplayed.
There are so many talented young defencemen in the league right now that I think Sanderson flies a bit under the radar. Even if though he doesn’t get a ton of recognition around the league, we as Sens fans should be thrilled with him: he’s a solid all-around defenceman who has no weaknesses in his game, and has gotten better every year.