For the last 18 years (12 with The Hockey News) Dobber has reviewed each team from a fantasy-hockey standpoint and graded them.

The 19th annual review will appear here on DobberHockey throughout the summer. This is not a review of the likely performance on the ice or in the standings, but in the realm of fantasy hockey both for the season ahead as well as the foreseeable future. Offensively, will the team perform? Are there plenty of depth options worthy of owning in keeper leagues? What about over the next two or three years? These questions are what I take into consideration when looking at the depth chart and the player potential on that depth chart.

Enjoy!

Gone – Derek Stepan, Artem Anisimov, Ryan Dzingel, Evgenii Dadonov, Michael Amadio

Incoming – Nick Holden, Michael Del Zotto

Impact of Changes – The biggest impact Ottawa's offseason likely had was just opening up roster spots for their young kids to fill. We look at those names and though they lost Dadonov, he's the only player that can play in the top-half of most rosters. Everyone else is sort of interchangeable, which is par for the course with the Sens. The notable change comes on the blue line, where they add Holden and Del Zotto, both capable of playing in an NHL lineup. Those guys are around to give their kids like Jacob Bernard-Docker and Jake Sanderson some time to develop. Both Holden and MDZ are capable at both ends of the ice, with Holden being the better defensively. This is to say that Ottawa's blue line has likely improved a fair bit from last year, given they played Erik Gudbranson for 36 games. If the two new guys, plus the existing guys like Chabot and Mete, can really provide puck-moving capability throughout the defensive corps, this team could take a big step offensively.

The losses aren't really significant. Dadonov flamed out, Dzingel couldn't recapture his magic, and the others were part-time players. This is another case where the improvements don't have to be significant themselves for there to be a big impact. If whichever kids get a role – Formenton, Pinto – are league-average quality, that's an improvement for the Sens. It is just a question if the players can reach that level, because there's a lot being levied on a young team. Ottawa's GM said himself the rebuild is over, so a forward group with an average age under 24 years old is now expected to perform well every night.

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Ready for Full Time – So, let's talk about some of those kids, namely Pinto and Formenton.

Shane Pinto was an early second-round pick in 2019 and played most of last year in American collegiate. He did finish the season with Ottawa, playing 12 games down the stretch (why they burned an ELC year of his, who knows). He could be one of the beneficiaries of an improved, mobile blue line as it's his goal-scoring prowess the team covets. He looked like he meshed well with Tim Stuetzle in his brief stint, as they put up exceptional expected goal numbers in their ~50 minutes together. That clearly isn't enough time to say how good they'll be, but even an above-average second line would be a big boost for the Sens. Pinto won't get the prime minutes just yet but 15-16 minutes a night is doable and that might make him fantasy-relevant.

The other name that could be in the lineup all season is Alex Formenton. He has 31 goals in his last 74 AHL games and most of those 31 goals were scored as a 20-year-old. His role could depend a lot on what happens with Stuetzle. If he plays the middle, there's a top-6, left wing spot open. If he doesn't, then there's not. There is a big difference between Formenton playing the second line with Stueztle and the third line with Chris Tierney. Of course, he could be second line with Tierney and then the decision tree gets all messed up. He is a good skater so that will carry him a long way on the ice, but for fantasy, he's a wait-and-see, not a must-draft rookie just yet.

Fantasy Outlook – Ottawa is a tough team to peg down because of their age. This is a team that, if their players keep developing, could round into something resembling the Blackhawks teams just as Toews/Kane were drafted. A team that goes through struggles as their stars mature, but whose offensive potential is immediately obvious. We even saw this down the stretch last year, as the team was 10^th across the league in 5-on-5 goal share and inside the top-20 in expected goal share in their final 20 games. Just maintaining that level of performance would ensure that there will be several fantasy-relevant options, even in shallow-ish leagues. (I personally did a deep dive on Josh Norris and Drake Batherson recently. That can be read here.) Even if they fall off a bit from those levels, a mid-pack scoring team will still have several fantasy options of note. While they likely aren't a playoff team in the real world just yet, this team has a couple high-end fantasy options in Chabot and Tkachuk, a few with breakout potential in Stuetzle, Batherson, and Norris, and some deep targets like Pinto or Zaitsev. If nothing else, this team should be an entertaining one and given the age of the roster, that's about as much as can be asked for right now.

Fantasy Grade: B- (last year was C)

Check out the rest of our previews to date here.