Senators Dangerously Overreact with MacDermid Trade

The Senators are not a weak team, but that night against the Canadiens, they looked helpless, so they added a player to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Yet the whole debacle is an overreaction to an incident in a preseason game that will have no bearing on the rest of the season, and now, the Senators are setting up a dangerous clash whenever they meet Montreal next.

MacDermid Doesn’t Have a Place in Ottawa

There’s no question that MacDermid is one of the toughest players in the NHL right now. Standing 6-foot-5 and weighing in at 234 pounds, he’s one of the reigning true NHL heavyweights, and he’s made a name for himself by stepping up against other giants. His tilt with New York Rangers enforcer Matt Rempe made headlines, both for the violence on the ice and the comments made from both sides before and after the event.

However, that’s about all MacDermid does now. Over his nine-year career, MacDermid has averaged just 32 NHL games per season, spending most of his time injured or as a healthy scratch. The reason is most likely that players like him don’t have a place in the NHL anymore. Gone are the days of employing enforcers on the fourth line to protect the star players. Fighting is down across the league and, despite the occasional emergence of a throwback enforcer like Rempe or Arber Xhekaj, teams are prioritizing skill and speed throughout their lineups. Having an enforcer play regular minutes makes a team worse overall.

Just look at MacEwen. He’s 6-foot-4, 236 pounds, and averaged 33 games a season over his seven-year career – almost identical numbers to MacDermid. In his two seasons in Ottawa, he played just 51 games and compiled 78 penalty minutes, the same pace as MacDermid with New Jersey. Yet the Senators didn’t need him in their bottom six, instead turning to Cousins, Michael Amadio, and Ridly Greig. The addition of Lars Eller and Arthur Kaliyev over the offseason further pushed MacEwen down the depth chart, leaving him destined for the American Hockey League (AHL) in 2025-26.

If MacDermid and MacEwen are basically the same player, that doesn’t leave a lot of hope that the Senators’ newest player will suddenly find a regular roster spot this season. It’s not like the Senators were lacking toughness, either; even with MacEwen playing sparingly, the Senators were still within the top half of the NHL in penalty minutes (PIM) last season, and although Brady Tkachuk almost doubled the team’s second-highest PIM total, Ottawa never looked physically outmatched. There’s no point trading for a player who doesn’t do anything different than the departing player, other than look bigger.

The Preseason Is Not the Regular Season

Over the years, there have been countless examples of minor players thriving against easier competition and strong teams faltering during the handful of games before the regular season kicks off. Just look at who’s leading the NHL scoring race so far; Buffalo Sabres centre Josh Norris already has five points in four games, with players like Sonny Milano, Hendrix Lapierre, and Noah Philp close behind him. While all are talented players, none are expected to lead their teams in scoring this season. Instead, all are benefiting from playing against more inexperienced players, inflating their stats.

The same goes for Ottawa. While fans would expect the likes of Tkachuk or Tim Stutzle to lead the team in scoring, the preseason ended with a three-way tie between Greig, Kaliyev, and David Perron, who all had two points. Meanwhile, Stutzle and Tkachuk have combined for just one assist between them.

That’s to be expected in the preseason; star players are resting up for the regular season, and depth pieces and younger players are given opportunities to show coaches and management how they’ll fit with the organization. Meanwhile, Kaliyev, Donovan Sebrango, Olle Lycksell, and Nikolas Matinpalo lead the Senators with four games played each. It’s been a strong showing from all of them, but even with their production, it’s unlikely any will spend much time in Ottawa this season, even though Sebrango is still with the team after the latest cuts.

Minor Players Can Cause Major Damage

Like Lycksell and Sebrango, Xhekaj is unlikely to play much in the NHL this season. The younger brother of Canadiens’ defenceman Arber proved he can drop the gloves with the best of them, but didn’t do much else over three games this preseason. So, when he saw the opportunity to scrap with Yakemchuk, a much higher-profile prospect, he – quite literally – grabbed the opportunity. If he can prove his strength against a big, skilled player, then he’d surely be one of the first names management thinks of when they need to call someone up from their farm team.

Yakemchuk, however, has a real opportunity to make the Senators this season. The rookie had a fantastic showing at last season’s training camp, and after jumping to pro this season, had an outside shot of securing a bottom-pairing position on Ottawa’s opening night roster. Against the Devils, he had some really good displays at both ends of the ice. But the debacle against Montreal didn’t do anything to help his cause. When asked if he learned anything from the game, head coach Travis Green bluntly replied, “Not really, no” (from ‘In yet another chaotic preseason game, the Canadiens found value where the Senators did not,’ The Athletic – 1/10/2025).

There wasn’t any point in the Sept. 30 game against Montreal. Not only did it provide no new insight into players or line combinations, but non-fighters were forced to engage with much stronger opponents, risking potential injury. Thankfully, no Senators left the game hurt, but the same can’t be said for the Canadiens, who saw their star rookie Ivan Demidov slashed by Cousins and leave the game one shift later, and their oft-injured centre Kirby Dach was sucker punched by Sebrango.

Injuries are an inevitable part of the game of hockey, but there’s a direct correlation between the number of games someone plays and the likelihood they will be injured. It’s why the NHL has decided to shorten the preseason, starting next season. But their treatment of incidents during this preseason and many before it has encouraged role and depth players to take liberties with other teams’ stars. Podcaster and commenter Steve Dangle was especially fired up over the string of injuries, saying in a recent episode, “The NHL has telegraphed this for months and months, and years and years: injure your opponent, break their bones, scramble their eggs, shorten their careers, and the punishment, as a result, will be worth it.”

The Senators saw Xhekaj’s actions as an attempt to injure Yakemchuk, and were embarrassed that they couldn’t adequately respond to the intense physicality, so they went out and grabbed one of the NHL’s toughest players. As of Oct. 5, MacDermid, Sebrango, and Cousins are all still in the main lineup, implying that the Senators want to make a very clear statement early in the season – you can’t push us around. But someone is going to have to pay the price for that stance. Will it be a rookie like Demidov, or a veteran like Dach? Then Sebrango and MacDermid will return to the minors, and the Senators will get back to business as usual.

Yet, if the Senators just stuck to their game, they wouldn’t need to waste time proving to the rest of the league that they are just as tough and mean as the rest of them. Now, instead of picking up crucial points in a tight Atlantic Division race, they’ll need to set a tone whenever they face the Canadiens again, or the Maple Leafs, or the infamously tough Florida Panthers. These are the actions of a bruised ego, not trying to make a team better, but the MacDermid trade could cost the Senators much more than their reputation.