Many Ottawa Senators players are about to embark on their maiden voyage in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Jake Sanderson has not had to endure the same wait as Brady Tkachuk, Thomas Chabot and other members of the Senators’ core group. In his third NHL season, the 22-year-old defenceman has blossomed into a bona fide star, and there is no better test of his mettle than the pressure-cooker that is the post-season version of the Battle of Ontario.
Asked on Saturday if the playoffs will serve as a “coming-out party” for Sanderson, Senators coach Travis Green disagreed with the premise.
“Jake’s a great player,” Green told reporters. “I don’t think he needs a coming-out party at all. People in the NHL know how good a player he is.”
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Sanderson quietly posted a career-high 57 points this season, including 32 over his final 33 games. He also led the Senators in total ice time (1,955:22) by a sizable margin, outperforming the next-closest player (Chabot) by more than 100 minutes.
Few skaters made more of an all-around impact during the regular season than Sanderson, who averaged more than 18 minutes at even strength, three minutes on the power play and two minutes on the penalty kill per game. Only Colorado’s Cale Makar and Utah’s Mikhail Sergachev can say the same.
Green will rely heavily on Sanderson and partner Artem Zub to combat the Toronto Maple Leafs’ top offensive threats throughout the first-round series, which starts Sunday at Scotiabank Arena.
Despite starting the majority of their shifts outside the offensive zone, Sanderson and Zub helped the Senators generate 56 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five this season — fifth most out of 59 defence pairs that played at least 500 minutes.
Toronto scored just three goals in three regular-season games against Ottawa, and Sanderson had a big hand in that. At five-on-five, the Senators outscored the Maple Leafs 3-0, out-chanced them 16-6 and out-attempted them 53-29 during Sanderson’s minutes. (The Maple Leafs’ “Core Four” forwards — Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares — combined to generate one scoring chance when sharing the ice with Sanderson in the season series.)
Under coach Craig Berube, the Maple Leafs have ramped up their forecheck, which puts greater importance on the Senators’ ability to break out pucks. Sanderson is unlikely to be fazed by that challenge. He finished the regular season tied for eighth among defencemen in successful defensive dump-in recoveries under pressure, which is when an opposing forechecker is within a stick length at the time of recovery. (A recovery is considered successful if it leads to a zone exit.)
Sanderson’s 11.3 per cent true turnover rate was the 10th best among 164 defencemen who played a minimum of 1,000 minutes during the regular season. That is wildly impressive, especially considering he had the puck on his stick for nearly 191 minutes — sixth most in that group.
“I think there’s certain players that you just kind of sit back and you watch and don’t over-coach,” Green told reporters recently. “You just watch them develop. His game is just slowly evolving into more. It’s great to watch and see him progress. We’re lucky to have him.”
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Ottawa’s roster has 361 combined games of playoff experience — the fewest among the 16 participating teams. Three players — David Perron, Claude Giroux and Nick Cousins — account for more than 70 per cent of it (262 total games).
Sanderson got a little taste of playoff intensity when he subbed in for Quinn Hughes at the 4 Nations Face-Off, playing two games and scoring a big goal for the United States in the championship round. The Senators’ chances of pulling off what many would consider a major upset ride on Sanderson’s performance against the Maple Leafs.
“We’re fired up to be in the playoffs, but at the same time, I think we know we can do some damage,” Sanderson told reporters. “As a young group, we’re lucky to have some veterans on the team to help us, like (Giroux) and (Perron). We’re excited.”
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