Senators to discuss extension with All-Rookie defenseman

The Senators took care of one important piece of business earlier this week with the signing of Vladimir Tarasenko to a one-year contract to help fill the void created by the departure of Alex DeBrincat to Detroit.  While they’re pretty much capped out, GM Pierre Dorion is hoping to have another big contract in the works as Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that the Sens and defenseman Jake Sanderson are set to sit down for extension discussions later this summer.

The 21-year-old had an impressive rookie season in 2022-23, collecting 32 points for Ottawa in 77 games while logging nearly 22 minutes a night of ice time.  The fifth-overall pick in 2020, Sanderson is projected to be a cornerstone piece for the Sens on their back end so it’s not surprising that the team wants to sit down and talk about a new deal early.

But it will be tricky to find a number that both sides are happy with considering that Sanderson’s NHL experience is limited to just those 77 games; that’s not a large sample size to work with.  There will be a lot of projecting with a long-term contract which makes it more difficult to lock down a year before it expires.

If the two sides look at a long-term agreement, they have a reasonable in-house comparable in Thomas Chabot, a player who makes the type of impact now that they believe Sanderson can down the road.  His eight-year deal carries an AAV of $8M; from a cap percentage standpoint, that agreement is worth $8.2M per season today.  Miro Heiskanen’s $8.45M AAV in Dallas would likely be the high point of any discussions.

Notably, Sanderson will have five years of club control remaining next summer; while he burned the first year of his entry-level deal in 2021-22, that doesn’t count as a year of service time toward UFA eligibility.  Assuming that they’d want to add at least a couple of years of control on a long-term deal, that basically takes a five-year or six-year agreement off the table.

While Ottawa has had the reputation of not being a high-spending team, that isn’t really the case anymore.  Per CapFriendly, they already have $65.77M in commitments for 2024-25 to just 13 players and while there is an expectation of a bigger cap increase next summer than the $1M it has been lately, they’re still looking at needing to sign seven to ten players with around $20M in room to work with.  A big-ticket long-term deal with Sanderson will start to put the squeeze on.

To that end, perhaps the two sides might ultimately be inclined to look toward a bridge deal that buys the two sides more evaluation time and the Sens a bit more short-term flexibility.  But if that’s the direction one or both sides are leaning, it’s unlikely that an agreement will be reached this summer.  In that case, one extra year of results would be quite useful for both Ottawa and Sanderson.

With Tarasenko in the fold, Dorion can check off one more item from his to-do list.  Sooner than later it seems, he’ll start working on the next item to see if an early agreement can be reached with one of his top blueliners.