Have the Senators failed the rebuild?

The Ottawa Senators are off to a slow start. Barely at .500, they languish at the bottom of the Eastern standings in the company of the Buffalo Sabres and the Montreal Canadiens.

And these teams have been comparing themselves for a long time: since 2017-18, these three teams have accumulated two playoff appearances out of a possible 21! In the Sens’ case, the last appearance was in 2017…

Not surprisingly, with another poor start to the season, media is on fire…

Individually, Tim Stützle is doing its best, with 20 points in his first 15 games.

Brady Tkachuk also maintained an interesting average of just over a point per game.

But while the big guns are producing quite well offensively, the collective effort isn’t paying off!

Contractually, the team isn’t necessarily in a bad position, with all its big guns signed for a few seasons, apart from Claude Giroux.

We shouldn’t be surprised to see the forward sign a smaller contract to extend his stay in the nation’s capital. He’s 36, after all.

And that’s the kind of signing the Sens will have to try in the near future: the team doesn’t have much wiggle room, and six players can count on contracts of around $8M per season for the next few years.

Is this guy’s depth already part of the 24-25 lineup? Adam Gaudette, with his $775,000 salary, partly fits that definition. He collected 7 points in his first 12 games.

The same is true of David Perron, an experienced forward signed relatively cheaply, but who failed to pick up a point in his first games of the season.

In front of the net, Linus Ullmark isn’t living up to expectations at the moment, with his efficiency rate below .900. A sad fact, but perhaps the Senators have simply failed to rebuild…