The Senators had their best regular season in years. Tim Stutzle reached 83 points. Drake Batherson set career highs. Jake Sanderson was playing at Norris Trophy level. Artem Zub went down in Game 1 of the playoffs. Taylor Hall concussed Sanderson in Game 3. With both first-pair defencemen gone, Carolina swept them without breaking a sweat. The sweep flatters neither team's honest story.
By Mike Holloway · June 2026 · 2025–26 Season Review Series · Playoff Teams
Oct–Feb · Best Regular Season in Years
Stutzle dominant. Sanderson at Norris-level. Cozens revived alongside Tkachuk and Greig. 99 points and a top-half seed in the East.
R1 Games 1–2 · Zub Injured in Game 1
Loses both games in Raleigh. The blue line is depleted immediately. Game 2 still goes to double-overtime - the team is competitive without its top right-shot defender.
R1 Game 3 · Sanderson Concussed
Hit by Taylor Hall. Travis Green calls him "not doing well." The team's best player is out for the series. A failed 5-on-3 power play seals the loss.
The honest account of the 2025-26 Ottawa Senators must contain two separate assessments, because the regular season and the playoffs produced two entirely different versions of the same team. The regular-season version won 44 games, accumulated 99 points, featured a 24-year-old centre playing the best hockey of his life, and entered the postseason as one of the more dangerous teams on the Eastern Conference side of the bracket. The playoff version had both members of its first defensive pairing removed from the series by injury, Artem Zub in Game 1, Jake Sanderson by a Taylor Hall hit in Game 3, and was swept in four games by the team that went on to win the Stanley Cup with a 16-3 record. The result is a sweep. The season is not a sweep. Context doesn't change the result. It does change the reading of it.
Tim Stutzle had 83 points, 34 goals and 49 assists, in a season that reestablished him as one of the Eastern Conference's most dangerous offensive centres. He is 24. Drake Batherson hit career highs in goals (33) and points (71). Dylan Cozens, acquired in a trade and paired with Brady Tkachuk and Ridly Greig on a line that produced the best expected-goals numbers of any trio in the NHL this season, revived a career that had seemed to be stalling in Buffalo. Jake Sanderson, when healthy, was playing at Norris Trophy calibre, 14 goals and 54 points in 67 games alongside a defensive game that produced 128 blocked shots and a 2.5 goals-against per 60 at even strength. The regular season produced real results, genuine individual excellence, and legitimate reason to believe this team's window was arriving.
Carolina 4, Ottawa 0, The Injuries That Changed Everything
A first-round series that started competitive, lost its spine in Game 1, lost its best player in Game 3, and ended in four. The score sheet says sweep. The injury report says something more complicated.
Only Batherson (3 goals, 4 points) and Cozens (2 goals) scored in the series. Stutzle had one assist in four games. Linus Ullmark was excellent, seven goals allowed in the first three games is competitive goaltending against the eventual Cup champions, but the offence could not generate behind a depleted blue line. Rookie Carter Yakemchuk had two assists in his playoff debut in Game 4, a positive footnote on a painful day. Green on the physicality: "We like to play on the edge. We weren't going to quit, we weren't going to go away quietly." They didn't go quietly. They just didn't win.
Zub Gone in Game 1. Sanderson Concussed in Game 3. Both First-Pair Defencemen Eliminated Before the Series Reached Its Midpoint. Against the Team That Went 16-3 to Win the Cup.
The 2026 Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes went 16-3 through the postseason. They swept Ottawa, swept Philadelphia, beat Montreal 4-1, and beat Vegas 4-2. They were the most dominant team in the 2026 playoffs. A healthy Ottawa roster, with Zub's +22 regular-season form and Sanderson's Norris Trophy-calibre two-way game, against Carolina is still a significant underdog. The Hurricanes were operating at a level that produced a historically dominant run from October to June.
But the injuries made a difficult series impossible. No team in the modern NHL can absorb the simultaneous loss of both first-pair defencemen in a four-game span and remain competitive against any playoff team, let alone the Stanley Cup champions. Zub in Game 1. Sanderson in Game 3. The blue-line collapse that followed is not Ottawa's failure of character or preparation, it is the mathematics of injury applied to the most structured, defensive team in hockey.
The Stutzle performance, one assist in four games, is the asterisk that remains regardless of context. He is the team's best player. He had one point in four games against a defence that allowed 16 goals in three prior series. Stutzle's playoff performance is the legitimate critique of the result. The injuries explain why the team lost. His individual output is the separate question about whether Ottawa's best player performs when the stakes are highest, a question that one four-game sample against an exceptional team doesn't definitively answer but cannot be ignored.
2025–26 Individual Season Grades, Regular Season + Playoffs Combined
83 pts (34G–49A) in regular season · 1A in 4 playoff games · 24 years old · still growing
The regular season was everything the franchise needed from their franchise centre: 83 points, dominant even-strength play, the best individual season of his career. The playoffs were the opposite, one assist in four games, a disappearing act that Travis Green diplomatically acknowledged ("his playoff performance was underwhelming"). The B+ reflects the full body of work. The playoff output is the deduction from an A. He is 24 and still developing. Green: "Timmy's game is still growing and he knows we're going to push him to be his best, and he hasn't got there yet." That sentence is both encouraging and the most honest thing said about the season.
33G · 71pts (career high) · playoff team leader: 3G–4pts · consistent all season
Career highs in goals and points in the regular season, then led the team in playoff scoring despite the circumstances. His 33-goal season is the product of a player who found his best offensive form on a team built to generate opportunities for wings like him. More importantly, when the playoffs came and the team's other stars were limited, Stutzle invisible, Tkachuk managing his thumb, Batherson delivered the team's best playoff output. That combination of regular-season peak and playoff delivery earns genuine credit.
14G–54pts in 67 GP · Norris Trophy calibre · 128 blocked shots · concussed G3 by Hall
Played at a level that made him one of the five or six best defencemen in the Eastern Conference this season. His point total (54 in 67 games) understates his defensive contribution: 128 blocked shots, a 2.5 goals-against per 60 at even strength while averaging nearly 19 minutes a night against the opposition's best forwards. The concussion suffered in Game 3, on a hit from Taylor Hall that the League evaluated, removed the team's best player from Games 3 and 4 and may have lingering consequences heading into training camp. His off-season recovery is the most important individual health story in Ottawa.
28G · 59pts (major thumb injury all season) · 215 hits (career high) · near-PPG despite surgery
Played the entire season through a significant thumb injury and still produced near-point-per-game hockey with a career-high 215 hits. The grade reflects the genuine achievement of producing at that rate injured, Tkachuk's physical game is the most important non-scoring contribution on the roster, and he maintained it regardless of what his thumb felt like. His playoff performance was competitive without being dominant. His post-series quote, "I didn't play good enough", was characteristically honest. A healthy Tkachuk next season is meaningfully different from the 2025-26 version.
Line with Tkachuk and Greig posted best expected goals in NHL · led team in PP goals · revived
The acquisition that changed Ottawa's offensive identity. His line, Cozens-Tkachuk-Greig, produced the best expected-goals numbers of any trio in the NHL this season. He led the team in power-play goals. He scored twice in the playoffs. After a career that seemed to be stalling in Buffalo, the Ottawa environment and the players around him unlocked a version of Cozens the league hadn't consistently seen. At 24, this is the platform for the next phase of his development.
28 wins · competitive in playoffs (7 goals allowed in 3 games vs eventual Cup champs)
Seven goals allowed in three games against the team that would go on to win the Stanley Cup is not goaltending failure. It is goaltending that kept Ottawa in Games 2 and 3 when the blue line was depleted and the team's best players weren't producing. His career playoff numbers (5-13, 3.05 GAA) reflect the teams he's played on more than the goaltender he is. The 28 wins in the regular season were the product of consistent professional performance that the team can build around.
"One of the best shutdown duos in the league", best description of their combined contribution
The quiet success story of the Ottawa season. The Pinto–Amadio defensive pairing handled the team's toughest even-strength assignments, suppressed expected goals against, and provided the competitive foundation that allowed the offensive lines to play with more space. Their development into a legitimate shutdown duo is the depth story that made Ottawa's regular-season success structurally coherent rather than top-heavy.
| Player | POS | GP | G | A | PTS | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tim Stutzle | C | ~82 | 34 | 49 | 83 | Point-per-game · team leader all categories · 1A in playoffs |
| Drake Batherson | RW | ~80 | 33 | 38 | 71 | Career high goals and points · playoff leader (3G–4pts) |
| Brady Tkachuk | LW | 82 | 28 | 31 | 59 | 29 PPP · 215 hits (career high) · thumb injury all season |
| Jake Sanderson | D | 67 | 14 | 40 | 54 | Norris Trophy calibre · 128 blocked shots · concussed R1 G3 |
| Dylan Cozens | C | ~78 | - | - | ~50 | Best expected-goals line in NHL w/ Tkachuk-Greig · led PP goals |
| Artem Zub | D | 81 | 5 | 25 | 30 | +22 (team leader) · hurt Game 1 playoffs · missed remainder |
| Linus Ullmark | G | ~55 | - | - | 28W | Competitive in R1 despite depleted D in front |
| Carter Yakemchuk | D | Limited | - | - | 2A | 2 assists in playoff debut (G4) · the franchise's defensive future |
“It's heartbreaking. Everybody in this room gave absolutely everything they had to try to extend the series. I didn't want our season to be over. I didn't play good enough.”
— Brady Tkachuk, captain, after the sweep - the accountability and the frustration in the same sentence
The 2025-26 Senators finished with 99 regular-season points and zero playoff wins. That gap, between a 44-win team and a first-round sweep, is partially explained by the injury context (losing both first-pair defencemen), partially by the matchup (the eventual Stanley Cup champions at the peak of a historically dominant postseason run), and partially by the honest underperformance of the team's best player when the games counted most. All three factors are true simultaneously. The sweep is the result. The reasons behind it are more complicated than the result alone suggests.
What the franchise heads into 2026-27 with is this: a 24-year-old point-per-game centre who Green says hasn't reached his best yet. A 24-year-old right wing with back-to-back career-high seasons. A captain who played through a significant injury all year and knows his own standard was not met. A Norris Trophy-calibre defenceman who needs a full offseason to recover from a concussion. A rookie defenceman (Yakemchuk) who debuted with two assists in his first playoff game and represents what the blue line looks like in two years. The franchise is not at its ceiling. The sweep stings because the ceiling is visible, and close, and the injuries prevented the chance to reach for it this year.
Browse the full set at Season Reviews. Previous in series: #17 Columbus Blue Jackets.
Season Review Verdict
99 points. Stutzle at his best. Batherson career highs. Both first-pair defencemen gone in the first four games against the eventual Cup champions. The B-minus reflects a strong regular season undermined by an injury-ravaged playoff exit against the eventual champions. It is the most charitable defensible grade for a team swept in four games. It is also the most accurate one when the circumstances are applied honestly.
Stutzle's one assist in four games is the legitimate deduction that keeps this from a higher mark. The franchise's best player needs to perform in April. One data point against a historically dominant team is not a verdict. It is a question that 2026-27 must answer.
Sanderson's concussion is the offseason's first priority. Tkachuk's thumb is the second. A full-health Ottawa roster in 2026-27 - with Yakemchuk developing into the blue-line piece alongside Sanderson and Zub - is a genuine threat in the Eastern Conference. This year's sweep is the painful opening chapter of a story that has not been written yet.