If Sanderson Misses the Opener, Ottawa's Reset Starts in a Hole It May Not Escape

The Senators traded their captain, signed a new defenseman, acquired a prospect, and brought back a veteran on a one-year deal. They did everything an organization does when it decides to stop pretending and actually rebuild. But every one of those moves was constructed with a silent assumption underneath it: that Jake Sanderson would be healthy and available when October arrived. That assumption is now in serious jeopardy, and without it, the entire architecture of 2026-27 looks shakier than the front office wants to admit.

Look at what Sanderson actually meant to this team last season. He logged 24.5 minutes a night — more than any other skater on the roster — finished plus-7 in a season where the team's collective defensive identity was inconsistent at best, and contributed 37 points from the blue line. That combination of ice time, defensive impact, and offensive contribution is not easily replaced by a committee. It is barely replaceable by one player. The Senators signed Jordan Spence to a four-year deal specifically to shore up that position alongside Sanderson, not instead of him. Spence was meant to be a complement, not a load-bearer.

The historical precedent here is unforgiving. Think about what happened to teams that entered a transitional season with their top defenseman compromised from the jump — the early-2010s Capitals losing their shutdown presence for stretches, the Jets navigating a reset year without their anchor. The pattern is consistent: when a rebuilding team loses its one player who makes the defensive structure coherent, the losses don't just pile up, they pile up in the worst possible way. They lose the close ones. And Ottawa, a team that won only 43% of its one-goal games last season, cannot afford to bleed points in tight contests while its best defenseman watches from the press box.

That one-goal record is the number that haunts me most going into this preview. Sixteen wins in 37 such games — that's the margin between a playoff team and a team that finishes 44-38 and goes home in April. Sanderson was on the ice for most of those contests, absorbing the toughest minutes. Without him for any significant stretch, the Senators are asking Dylan Cozens — who was a brutal minus-14 last season — and a blue line still getting acquainted with each other to somehow improve on that execution. That is a very large ask.

Tim Stutzle will do what Stutzle does. He averaged a point per game last season in 50 games, and he is the engine that keeps Ottawa's offense from collapsing entirely. But even a fully healthy Stutzle cannot compensate for a defense that is operating short-handed at its most important position. The 2025-26 Senators showed us exactly what this team looks like when it has to win ugly — it mostly doesn't. A Sanderson-less opening month would be the worst possible confirmation of that tendency, at the worst possible moment for a franchise trying to convince itself and its fanbase that the rebuild has direction.

My declaration is this: if Sanderson misses the first two to three weeks of the season, Ottawa will not recover enough ground in the Eastern Conference standings to be a genuine playoff contender in 2026-27. The margin was already thin. The blue line behind him is already unproven. Artem Zub is also sidelined. Spence is untested at this level of responsibility. This is not a roster that absorbs a Sanderson absence and shrugs. It is a roster that was designed around his presence, and it will show every seam the moment he is not in the lineup.