{"id":33324,"date":"2025-07-30T03:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/33324\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T03:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:11:07","slug":"senators-carter-yakemchuk-working-to-make-opening-night-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/33324\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators’ Carter Yakemchuk Working To Make Opening Night Roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right-defense was a sore spot for the Ottawa Senators throughout the entire 2024-25 season. They iced five different players on the right-side, and even parted with Jacob Bernard-Docker<\/a> at the Trade Deadline. For top Senators prospect Carter Yakemchuk<\/a>, that lineup weakness stands as a golden opportunity. Now in his first year of NHL\/AHL eligibility, Yakemchuk told Julian McKenzie of The Athletic<\/a> that he\u2019s fully geared towards making the NHL roster out of camp.<\/p>\n

Yakemchuk shared that he has returned to working with Calgary-based CRASH Conditioning this summer, after joining the program following his draft selection last year. In that regiment, his summer training is overseen by Seattle Kraken assistant coach Dave Lowry<\/a> \u2013 as well as former pro-turned-coach Dan Bakala<\/a> and David Liffiton<\/a>, who will move to an assistant coach role with the AHL\u2019s Calgary Wranglers next season. Yakemchuk emphasizes that the coaching staff has him on the right path, telling McKenzie:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m looking forward to [training camp]. My goal is to make the opening roster\u2026 And I\u2019m looking forward to putting in the work that it takes to make that.<\/p>\n

Building out his defensive game has been a key focus of Yakemchuk\u2019s development. Lowry pointed out to McKenzie that Yakemchuk\u2019s offense is already, clearly, at a top level \u2013 and it\u2019s the hard-nosed play away from the puck that he\u2019ll need to earn an NHL role. Luckily, that\u2019s the exact point that other coaches praised when reflecting on Yakemchuk\u2019s summer. Liffiton \u2013 who coached Yakemchuk at the WHL\u2019s Calgary Hitmen last season \u2013 emphasized that Yakemchuk\u2019s defensive game has taken major strides forward, which helps explain his drastic decrease in scoring this season. After netting 30 goals and 71 points in 66 games last year, the former seventh-overall pick scored just 17 goals and 49 points in 56 games this year.<\/p>\n

But as pointed out by the CRASH coaches, that decrease was all by design. Even through the spot scoring, Yakemchuk prevailed as one of the best puck-moving defensemen in his age group. He continued to dominate possession and flash exciting stickhandling for a defender of his size \u2013 but showed the patience to make smart passes to his forwards, like 2025 11th-overall pick Benjamin Kindel<\/a>. All the while, Yakemchuk continued to grow in his ability to dominate the corners and low-slot with his heavy frame. Strong skating helped him get chippy with opponents in front, and it was rare that an opposing body-check knocked him off balance.<\/p>\n

In the name of growing defense, Yakemchuk\u2019s breakout goal-scoring from 2023-24 can afford to subside a bit. He\u2019s a burly 6-foot-4, 200-pound defender who throws hits just as hard as he shoots \u2013 evidenced by his 202 penalty minutes in 122 WHL games over the last two seasons. Those will be the attributes that earn him a full-time role on a Senators\u2019 blue-line already housing the fearless Artem Zub<\/a> and Nick Jensen<\/a> on the right-side.<\/p>\n

If Yakemchuk\u2019s growing physicality sticks, he could find incredible opportunity in Ottawa\u2019s lineup. Neither Zub nor Jensen offer much scoring upside at all, which seems to limit the ground that star left-defenders Jake Sanderson<\/a> and Thomas Chabot<\/a> can gain. Bringing in another burly defender capable of driving the puck all the way down the ice, and creating strong scoring chances, could go a long way towards clearing up more space for Ottawa\u2019s best defenders.<\/p>\n

Yakemchuk is no stranger to a tough role. He seemed to be on the ice for every one of the Hitmen\u2019s biggest moments over the last two seasons, and averaged 18 minutes of even-strength ice-time alone in both years. That conditioning could come in handy as he joins a team that\u2019s no stranger to awarding their top defenders with 23 or 24 minutes a night. The lucrative lineup role ahead, and determined focus on making the roster, will make Yakemchuk a pivotal player to watch as training camps roll around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Right-defense was a sore spot for the Ottawa Senators throughout the entire 2024-25 season. They iced five different…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,25259,448,744,14116,82,25260],"class_list":{"0":"post-33324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-carter-yakemchuk","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-ottawa-senators","13":"tag-players","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-whl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}