Debuts, injuries, and a near miss off the post define Senators’ Thanksgiving matinee

Three Senators made their 2025–26 regular season debuts on Monday afternoon, when the Nashville Predators came to town for Ottawa’s home opener.

Jordan Spence and Tyler Kleven were paired as the third defence pair, while Olle Lycksell played right wing alongside Nick Cousins and Lars Eller.

Drake Batherson is looking to join them on Wednesday night, as the Senators travel to Buffalo to take on the 0-3 Sabres. “I’m ready to go,” Batherson told media after participating in an optional skate on Tuesday morning.

“I’ve taken it day-by-day and feel a lot better the last couple of days, and feel good enough to play,” said Batherson, who had not missed a game since March 2022 before being held out the first three games of this season with an upper-body injury suffered during practice on Sept. 23.

Batherson is the second-longest serving Senator behind Thomas Chabot, and has compiled three-straight 20-goal, 60-point seasons.

“I’m waiting to get final clearance, but it sounds like there’s a good chance he’ll play tomorrow,” said Travis Green, who called Batherson a “welcome addition.”

Meanwhile, Green said Tkachuk will miss “a significant” amount of time after suffering an upper-body injury against the Predators.

The Senators’ captain was boarded by Roman Josi on Monday and briefly left the Senators’ bench after favouring his right arm. Though he returned, he didn’t play at all in the second half of the third period.

Green confirmed that the injury was suffered after he was sent into the boards early in the first period. Green also offered four weeks as an approximate timeline for recovery, but that the team will know more after further diagnosis of the injury.

A game of inches

When Jordan Spence beat Saros with a one-timer off a pass from Thomas Chabot on a 4-on-4, it looked like it had just snuck past the outstretched paddle of Saros and would tie the game at one with under two to play in the second period of Monday’s home opener against Nashville.

Instead, it rang off the left post. Despite some more chances — like breakaways from Shane Pinto and Tim Stützle — the Senators would ultimately not score until Dylan Cozens banked a pass off Ridly Greig’s skate down two goals, with Linus Ullmark pulled for an extra attacker in the dying minutes of the game.

“If I scored that goal, the game might have been way different,” acknowledged Spence. “We might have created that momentum and might have won that game. So, you know, I was pretty disappointed in myself in not scoring.”

Spence was very active in the offensive zone in general during his regular season Sens debut on Monday. In 17:44 minutes of action, he took three shots and was responsible for five scoring chances, per NaturalStatTrick, which was tied with Stützle for the most on the team.

When he was on the ice, the Sens sent six of their 11 total high danger chances towards Saros.

“Obviously the chances are there,” said Spence. “So I just want to keep getting those chances in the offensive zone, keep trying to make plays, and hopefully next time when I get that chance, I’m able to bury that and help the team.”

Green said he thought Spence played well but also noted that there is a lot of internal competition on the right side of the blueline. “I thought he played well, moved the puck well, created some offence. It was a good first game.”

Spence also talked about making his Senators’ debut in front of a sold-out Canadian Tire Centre crowd.

“Going through that home opener, and the crowd, how electric they were, how active they were, and how loud they were, it was really cool to see,” said Spence.

“It shows that Canadian market of passionate fans… obviously, we didn’t get the win last night, but at the same time, if they keep bringing that energy, we want to play better in front of the fans, so yeah, it was great.”

Loose Pucks

Linus Ullmark was trying out a new radius on the blades of his skates, and attended part of the optional skate in shorts and a hoodie.

Batherson told media that he has plans to go out for dinner with Josh Norris on Tuesday night, who the Senators traded to the Sabres alongside Jacob Bernard-Docker for Cozens before last year’s trade deadline.

Twelve players saw ice during penalty kills on Monday, with Artem Zub (6:19 TOI) and Jake Sanderson (5:39 TOI) leading the way on defence and Lars Eller (4:03 TOI), Ridly Greig (3:52 TOI), Claude Giroux (3:37 TOI), and Michael Amadio (3:34 TOI) the most common on offence.

Ottawa, who had allowed five goals on eight shorthanded chances entering Monday, went a perfect 6-for-6 against Nashville.

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