How will the Senators react to Josh Norris’ long-term injury?

Tyler Yaremchuk: Another team that is in that division and is off to a pretty good start as well is the Ottawa Senators at 4-2. But they were dealt some tough injury news, a lot of yesterday’s show talking about Shane Pinto and Magnus Hellberg, and we had Brent Wallace on to talk about how much excitement there is for this Senators team. Then we find out Josh Norris is going to be out for a long time. There are some reports that it can even be a season-ender for the Senators’ centerman.

So here’s the question, how do the Senators handle this? Is this a team with a 4-2 start that should be going around the league, you know, can we find another top-six center to slot in here so we don’t fall out of the race? Or is this a team that has enough depth and they can get through this without moving things around?

Mike McKenna: I would say to GM Pierre Dorion do not panic, you have a great team in front of you, even without Josh Norris. The way that this club is defending, Tyler, gives them the chance to continue to score goals, they’ve been good 5-on-5. This is a nice chance to what happened in previous years for Ottawa, they’ve only allowed nine goals on 5-on-5 in six games. That gives the team a chance to rely on some of their centermen. I think that you’re going to see Shane Pinto play a bigger role for this club and he deserves it, he’s scored goals in five straight games. Timmy Stutzle is playing his natural position at center and he’s excelling in doing so. The key ingredient to this is you still got Claude Giroux available to play center. Derick Brassard can take faceoffs if necessary. I think they can platoon this with the talent that’s in-house.

And you want to see where it goes, Ottawa’s still building, even though they’ve made great moves in the offseason like I said with Dorion picking up Alex DeBrincat, Cam Talbot, and Claude Giroux. I just feel this is a club you don’t want to mess with the mojo right now. They’re on the upward trajectory, I think there’s a feeling in that locker room that things are going good. Maybe if you get closer to the trade deadline and you feel like you need some extra juice you go for it if you’re Pierre Dorion. Tyler, I like this team the way they are right now I want to see them have the chance to run with it.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, I think I’m with you, I love the versatility in this forward group, you talk about sliding over Giroux, maybe you make Tkachuk a centerman for a little, that’s an experiment they’ve done in the past. And then there’s Shane Pinto sitting on the third line, we talked about yesterday like it’s only a matter of time until that guy has kind of outgrown the third line role that the Senators are using to kind of ease him into things right now. If he slides up to that second line I don’t you’re going to miss a beat which is weird to say because Josh Norris had such an excellent season last year. Another guy that our producer Alex, who is our local Senators fan, Ridly Grieg, first-round pick in 2020 maybe they go to the minors, and hey another young piece let’s bring him up.

Mike McKenna: The 35 tucks aren’t easy to replace that Norris had but again like when your team defends, you can find scoring. And that to me has been the most positive change for the Senators this year, they’re much more well-rounded than they’ve been in the past.