It's no secret that the Senators’ front office has been looking for a right-handed defenseman for longer than scientists have been looking for life on Mars. And, until this season, it has been an equally difficult task.
Six seasons prior, in some of the darkest days of the Melnyk Era, Pierre Dorion decided to ship out right-handed defenceman, Dylan Demelo, for a 3rd round pick in the 2020 draft (which turned into goaltender Leevi Merilainen). Demelo was a +3 on a terrible Ottawa Senators team. That was the last partner that Thomas Chabot had that could elevate their game to the same level as Chabot’s. The trade left a glaring hole on the right side that the Sens have not been able to fill since then. There has been a revolving door of partners such as Nikita Zaitsev, Josh Brown, Travis Hamonic, Erik Brannstrom, and most notably, Jakob Chychrun. The acquisition of Chychrun was simple: get a defenceman of the same caliber as Chabot so you can have Chabot revert to being the Chabot that Sens fans loved. As we all know, it was a left-handed peg trying to fit into a right-handed hole. Chychrun’s time with the Sens can be classified as a series of ups and downs, marred with defensive inefficiencies.
Prior to this, though, Chabot was on the fast track to being one of the best Canadian defencemen, with his skating capability being the highlight of his game. Chabot was being discussed as an option to be slotted in on the 2nd or 3rd pairing of Team Canada in potential lineups for the Olympics or World Cup of Hockey. His offensive skill and adequate defensive abilities made him a formidable player who easily broke up plays and turned them into quick breakouts and scoring chances. His best offensive season came in 2018-19, where he scored 55 points. As noted previously, however, Chabot hasn’t had the right partner since 2019-20.
It’s never a good start when you have to give context and excuses for a player for why their play has dipped, but it always felt like more of a when than an if in Chabot’s case. Was he a good player who was a victim of a lot of crappy circumstances, or had injuries and bad coaching finally caught up to him? It was hard to accurately assess because Chabot hadn’t had a good partner or stylistic fit for five years. So what was the actual truth of Chabot, was he now just ‘okay’ or could he go back to being the Chabot of years past?
Since the emergence of Jake Sanderson, there have been detractors of Chabot who argue that he isn’t worth his contract (which wasn’t entirely wrong in previous seasons), and that we should trade him and keep Chychrun instead. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed this previous summer when Senators general manager Steve Staios traded Chychrun for Nick Jensen and a 3rd round draft pick in 2026. It was predetermined that this was Chabot’s new partner. Jensen and Chabot have been stapled together since pre-season and, as you may have observed yourselves, they’ve been a stellar pairing.
Chabot and Jensen have clicked, giving each other the time and space to make good plays in the defensive zone, break pucks out, and turn them into scoring chances. Like Demelo before him, Jensen doesn’t try to be something he’s not with Chabot. Jensen has the ability to play against higher-skilled competition with his hockey IQ and smart instincts. That said, Jensen himself isn’t a complete shutdown defenceman. There are times where you’ll see him dance around the offensive zone looking for the right time to shoot or make a nice seam pass. We know Chabot can do almost anything with the puck when he’s on his game and Jensen allows him to do that. Analytically speaking, the pairing’s results are exactly where the eye test shows them to be. Jensen and Chabot are both 1 and 2 respectively in expected goals for percentage for D-men with more than 30 minutes played in November with Jensen at 74.09% and Chabot at 73.55%. If you’re not an analytics buff (much like me), this is very good.
Below you can see Chabot and Jensen’s Isolated Impact charts (as of Nov. 15) created by a friend of the Senstennial, Micah Blake McCurdy of HockeyViz. As it states in the chart, blue is better in the defensive zone, and red is better in the offensive zone. In the case of both, you can see there is a lot of blue and a lot of red exactly where it needs to be. Chabot currently ranks top 20 in the league for scoring, and more impressively, top 10 for defenceman in 5v5 scoring. This is ahead of exceptional talents like Colorado Avalanche defenceman, Cale Makar, and slightly behind Quinn Hughes and Alex Pietrangelo, which is stellar company to be in. Chabot currently plays on Ottawa’s second powerplay unit and the second penalty kill unit, and while his power play production could improve, he has been an effective player on the penalty kill. Meanwhile, Jensen has 6 points in 16 games, with a plus-12 rating, and has been a stalwart defensive presence for the Sens.
It’s not hard to want to see success from this pairing, especially when people outside of Sens land (and inside) had claimed that the Senators traded the wrong player for a guy who may be over the hill, and that Chabot was “washed.” To the naysayers, we humbly would like to inform you that you were wrong. In all seriousness, the Senators needed Chabot to be better and that may have had to do with his health, his partner, and/or being overplayed, as that $8M contract appeared to not be aging very well. As it stands now, this pairing has been electric and has surpassed many of the expectations most Sens fans may have had.
So, what does having Chabot playing some of the best hockey he’s played in five years mean? It means we as Sens fans get to truly appreciate Chabot again and can once again look back fondly on Chabot’s 2017 World Junior Heroics that won him the only MVP of the tournament awarded to a D-man in its history. It means the Senators can deploy two pairings that operate like a first pairing. It means that the Sens aren’t being given mediocre defensive performances from the majority of their D. And, finally, it gives their goalies the best chance to make saves. Ultimately, it could be one of the most important requirements that the Senators need in order to break their playoff drought, and that’s something all Senators fans would love to see.
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