Biggest potential surprise<\/p>\n
The Senators spent the early part of camp testing Andre Burakovsky<\/a> on the wing of the first line alongside Stutzle and Batherson. Only time will tell if it\u2019s warranted. His career high of 22 goals came with the Colorado Avalanche in 2021-22. Since then, the 31-year-old has scored 41 times across the subsequent four-season span. Truth be told, the Senators are looking to any and all comers to add offense after Tkachuk\u2019s departure, and Burakovsky is being put into a prime position to succeed to that end. It will be interesting to see if he does.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ready to contribute<\/p>\n Carter Yakemchuk<\/a>, who was selected with the No. 7 pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, is poised to take the next step in his career. The defenseman, who will turn 21 on Sept. 29, was told in the season-ending exit meetings to come to training camp ready to earn a job with the Senators after an impressive NHL debut last season, when he had two points (one goal, one assist) in four regular-season games and two assists in one game during the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Hurricanes. He is spending camp staying with Senators forward Ridly Greig<\/a>, a fellow Alberta native, and has been paired early on with No. 1\u00a0defenseman Jake Sanderson<\/a>. Yakemchuk had 40 points (10 goals, 30 assists) in 54 games with Belleville of the American Hockey League last season.<\/p>\n Fantasy sleeper with EDGE stats<\/p>\n William Eklund, F: He has had consecutive 50-point seasons after totaling 45 points (16 goals, 29 assists) in 80 games as a rookie with the Sharks in 2024-25. Eklund, who will turn 24 years old on Oct. 12, could play on the top line with center Tim Stutzle, a two-time 30-goal scorer who has led Ottawa in points in three of the past four seasons. Eklund had a career-high 176 shots on goal last season and has seen an increase in that category in each of his past four seasons. The Senators were among the NHL leaders in power-play goals (63; fourth) and power-play percentage (24.0; eighth) last season, while Eklund led the Sharks with 17 power-play goals the past three seasons combined. Per NHL EDGE stats, Eklund scored 12 of his 15 goals from high-danger zones and ranked in the 90th percentile or higher among forwards in high-danger shots on goal (74), offensive zone time percentage (45.9 percent) and total skating distance (229.53 miles). Eklund is a full-fledged breakout candidate and an under-the-radar offseason mover based on average draft position (142.1). — Troy Perlowitz<\/p>\n Projected lineup<\/p>\n Andre Burakovsky — Tim Stutzle — Drake Batherson<\/p>\n William Eklund — Dylan Cozens — Fabian Zetterlund<\/p>\n Ridly Greig — Shane Pinto — Claude Giroux<\/p>\n Warren Foegele — Stephen Halliday — Michael Amadio<\/p>\n Jake Sanderson — Carter Yakemchuk<\/p>\n Thomas Chabot — Jordan Spence<\/p>\n Tyler Kleven — Artem Zub<\/p>\n Linus Ullmark<\/p>\n Samuel Ersson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Biggest potential surprise The Senators spent the early part of camp testing Andre Burakovsky on the wing of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-905539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905539","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=905539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}