A look at the Ottawa Senators' free-agent situation heading into the 2022 offseason

Free agency is now less than a month away, and many teams are already looking ahead to when it begins.  There will be several prominent players set to hit the open market in mid-July, while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well.  Next up is a look at the Senators.

Key restricted free agents

F Joshua Norris — While Senators GM Pierre Dorion previously called the day he traded Mark Stone to the Vegas Golden Knights “one of the proudest” days he’d had in his career as a GM, it’s his trade of Erik Karlsson that was the real stroke of brilliance. Not only did the Senators receive the draft pick used to select budding star Tim Stutzle in exchange for their captain, they also received center Joshua Norris, who was then in his freshman season at the University of Michigan. Norris was drafted 19th overall in 2017 and has blossomed into a lethal goal scorer. With Brady Tkachuk at his side, Norris scored 35 goals this year and finished 2021-22 with 55 points in 66 games, a 68-point pace. Norris also showed some improvements in his defensive game. While Norris’ 20.3% shooting percentage is high enough to raise questions about the sustainability of his goal scoring, Norris did have a 17.7% shooting percentage in 2020-21, and some high-end goal scorers are simply capable of sustaining inflated shooting percentages thanks to their elite shooting talent. Norris could be in that category, and the Senators shouldn’t drag their feet in locking Norris down on a long-term deal. Montreal Canadiens center Nick Suzuki’s eight-year, $7.875M extension could be a solid number for a maximum-term deal, and it would come under Tkachuk’s $8.2M cap hit, meaning Norris wouldn’t be making more than the captain. The Senators may want something a bit cheaper, maybe along the lines of the five-year, $6.1M AAV extension Dylan Larkin signed, but with comparable young centers like Suzuki and the New Jersey Devils’ Nico Hischier signing long-term deals north of $7M AAV, expect any long-term deal for Norris to come in at around that number as well.

F Mathieu Joseph — Earlier in the season, his offseason case would have looked pretty simple. As an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent, Joseph would have had the option to take whatever the arbitrator awarded him and inch closer to a trip to unrestricted free agency. But now, there could be more appetite to get an extension done from the team side of the equation, thanks to a midseason trade to the Senators. Joseph arrived in Ottawa in exchange for Nick Paul and found immediate success there. He fit naturally next to Norris and Tkachuk, and in the first week of April, Joseph had 10 points in just four games. It was that four-game stretch that served as an endorsement of Dorion’s belief in Joseph and also serves as the root of uncertainty with Joseph entering this offseason. Do they pay him for what they think he can be? Or do they opt to let him take a one-year deal in order to see if the talent he flashed is there to stay? It’s a risky situation, because either option could easily end up being a mistake. If he plays as he did in that stretch over the course of a full season in Ottawa, his price skyrockets. But if the Senators commit now, there’s the chance that his scoring outburst was just a mirage, and they’ve overpaid for the idea of a player rather than the reality of the one they have. With all that in mind, Joseph seems like an under-the-radar pick for the most intriguing restricted free-agent situation of the offseason.

F Alex Formenton — This past season was the year that winger Alex Formenton finally broke into the NHL full-time, and his impressive rookie year couldn’t have come at a better time, as he’s lined himself up for a nice raise from the $747K cap hit he played on last season. Formenton scored 18 goals and 32 points in 79 games last year, a goal total that ranked fourth on the Senators. Formenton’s speed is his best asset, and he got to show it off on the penalty kill. Formenton averaged just under 2 minutes of short-handed ice time per game, on a penalty kill that impressively ranked 13th in the NHL. Formenton looks like he could be a long-term asset in the Senators’ middle-six, providing valuable goal-scoring, speed and special-teams ability. While a bridge deal is definitely possible, the Senators could also look to sign Formenton to a long-term deal in order to protect against any improvements to his game driving up his price.  Perhaps the best contract to use as a guide would be Buffalo Sabres forward Alex Tuch, who signed a seven-year, $4.75M deal with the Golden Knights after a rookie season where he scored 15 goals and 37 points in 78 games, similar numbers to Formenton’s this year. $4.75M is a lot to commit to Formenton for what he is now, but teams should be paying for what players are going to do, rather than what they’ve already done. Tuch quickly made his contract look like a steal, and Formenton definitely has the talent to do the same.

Other RFAs: F Adam Gaudette, D Erik Brannstrom, G Michael McNiven

Key unrestricted free agents

F Chris Tierney — Like Norris, Tierney also came to Ottawa as part of the Erik Karlsson trade. Unlike Norris, though, Tierney has played his way out of a long-term stay in Ottawa rather than played his way into one. Tierney’s first season with the Senators was a great follow-up to the promising final season he had with the Sharks. While he scored only nine goals, he finished with 48 points. While some expected the 24-year-old Tierney to build off that season and have it serve as the baseline for the production that could be expected of him, Tierney regressed. First only a little, with a small decline in 2019-20 to only 37 points in 71 games. But it was 2020-21 when things really went downhill, as Tierney had only 19 points in 55 games, the lowest he’d ever marked in an NHL season. This year was no better, as he had 18 points in 70 games. Dorion stated at his end-of-season press conference that Tierney would not be extended in Ottawa, so he will look to find a role with another club seeking to unlock the potential he showed just a few years ago.

D Victor Mete — While Mete is technically a pending restricted free agent, Dorion has already stated that Mete would not be issued a qualifying offer and would therefore become an unrestricted free agent, hence him being listed here. Mete is an interesting case, as he’s the sort of player who, on paper, a team like Ottawa should be committing to developing. Mete, now 24, was once one of the Montreal Canadiens’ top defensive prospects, and he first made the NHL playing as Shea Weber’s partner. But while Mete’s abilities in transition as a puck-mover were always his calling card, no other aspect of his game developed as the Canadiens had hoped. Mete famously took 126 games to score his first NHL goal, and the lack of development of the rest of his tools, beyond his abilities in transition, caused the Canadiens to eventually waive him. Many were calling for teams to claim Mete, and the Senators did just that. But unfortunately for the Senators and Mete, it was more of the same in Ottawa, and by 2021-22 he found himself a frequent healthy scratch. Mete enters the offseason with the chance to choose his destination for the first time in his career, and given his history, there still is some reasonable hope that he could develop into an NHLer. But the clock’s ticking on him, and the choice of his next destination will go a long way in determining if he’ll eventually turn into the NHL defenseman many once believed he could be.

Other UFAs: F Tyler Ennis, F Andrew Agozzino, F Clark Bishop, F Scott Sabourin, F Zachary Senyshyn, F Logan Shaw, D Dillon Heatherington, D Zac Leslie

Projected cap space

This is where the Senators have an advantage over other teams. In a flat-cap era where having flexibility under the salary cap is at an absolute premium, Ottawa has more than $20M in projected cap space entering this offseason. Sure, a lot of that should be earmarked for potential extensions for Norris, Formenton or even an early deal for Stutzle, but the Senators will still have more room to maneuver than most teams. That’ll be especially true if they find a way to get out from under Matt Murray’s $6.25M AAV deal. A buyout seems like the most likely solution, as it would not only save the Senators $5M in real cash but also give them $4.5M in cap savings this year and $5.5M next year, at the cost of $2.5M in dead money for the next two seasons after that. With the Senators looking to go hunting for a big name this offseason, expect their advantageous cap position to be leveraged to a great degree in order to maximize their ability to compete in the near future.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.