After rumours were floating that Vladimir Tarasenko was on his way to Carolina, a new agency started representing him and it appeared there was no movement in that direction. One of the remaining top free agents on the board, it seemed inevitable Tank would land somewhere he could pump his value for free agency in 2024 while helping a playoff hopeful. Thursday night, he decided that place would be Ottawa:

That contract is for $5M. With Alex DeBrincat moving on to Detroit, there was a need for a scoring winger. Consider that need filled.

What Ottawa Gets

It was a down year for the six-time 30-goal scorer as he finished with just 18 in 69 games, faring no better in St. Louis or New York. His 10.7% shooting was the lowest in any season he's played at least 40 games. Scoring ability is one of the traits that falls off in the late-20s/early-30s portion of a forward's career, but he still shot 12.1% over his last three seasons, compared to 11.4% in the three years prior. It may be a blip and getting back to the 12-13% range would help his goal totals immensely.

Another problem was his shot rate. Tarasenko took 13.5 shot attempts per 60 minutes at even strength. Again, that is the lowest mark for his career in any season where he's played at least 40 games. It has been a near-steady downward trend in shot volume since 2017-18, though he did play for St. Louis and New York, two teams that tend to focus on shot quality than quantity.

The last issue is his defence. Though he's never been relied upon as a great two-way winger, there's a difference between being defensively mediocre and defensively abysmal. Per Evolving Hockey's metrics, he's been the latter over the last two seasons. It isn't a huge deal for fantasy hockey, but it could limit his ice time in certain situations if the coach feels he can't rely on him with a lead.

Going to Ottawa is what makes this signing peculiar for this player. The Senators were dead last in the NHL by shooting percentage at even strength – something Tarasenko may or may not help – but were sixth in shot rate.  He could benefit a lot from playing next to Tim Stützle, but the team doesn't have much for playmaking centres down the lineup. Josh Norris is a more scoring-oriented centre. If the new signee can get to the top line with Brady Tkachuk and Stützle, he could very well have a rebound year. If he's playing with Josh Norris or Shane Pinto, we don't have to look much further than the season DeBrincat just had – three-year low in goals and points per game – to get nervous about Tarasenko's upside.

There is also the issue of the power play. Ottawa has a heavily used top unit and with a healthy Norris, there are five forwards with a claim to the top unit and at least two of them are guaranteed a spot. For Tarasenko, there is a chasm of a difference between the top line with Stützle with heavy top PP minutes, and the second line with Norris and secondary PP minutes. It could easily be the difference of 20 points. My guess is he gets all the prime minutes early on, but there's a difference between getting the minutes and holding the role.

It is not great news for Drake Batherson. It gives him immediate competition for those important offensive minutes and a veteran player they may lean on more (though Batherson is up to 227 games now).

Adding Tarasenko does round out the team's top-6 mix. They have Stützle, Tkachuk, Batherson, Norris, Tarasenko, and Claude Giroux. Two of those guys won't get top PP minutes, and my guess is they'll be the younger Ottawa forwards in Norris and Batherson. It is easy to slot them on a second unit with Pinto and a couple of their top defencemen. It would give the Sens a very viable second PP unit, so maybe that changes deployment a bit. We won't know until the season starts. This signing even allows them to move someone like Giroux or Batherson to the third line to give them more depth scoring on a line with, say, Dominik Kubalik and Pinto. I wouldn’t expect that immediately but the season is long.

Kubalik is probably not happy about this. His road to meaningful offensive minutes just got longer. At least one of Kubalik, Pinto, and Ridly Greig will be off the power play entirely now (all of this is when everyone is healthy, which isn't often). My guess is that'll be Kubalik.

Who this helps

Tim Stützle

Who this hurts

Drake Batherson

Josh Norris

Dominik Kubalik

Ridly Greig