Shane Pinto didn’t exactly know what Travis Green wanted out of him when Green arrived in Ottawa last fall, but he certainly understands what his role is these days, as the Senators prepare to take on the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Green has helped shape Pinto into one of the game’s premier two-way centres, a luxury that many teams could only dream of on their third line.
“I think at the beginning, I was a little against it, I think I didn’t really know what he wanted from me at the start,” said Pinto about the role and responsibility that Green had tasked him with when Green became Ottawa’s head coach.
“I think I kind of went back at him a little bit a couple of times last year, but as it’s gone on, I’ve understood, we’ve had a lot of good chats. He kind of saw something that maybe I didn’t see at the time, and I’m pretty grateful for it.
“It kind of rounded out my game. I’ve always been a defensive player, but not to that extent, I always wanted to kind of score goals and stuff. But the way he’s rounded out my game, I appreciate it, I always thank him when it’s all said and done.”
Just how tough have the assignments from Green been for Pinto? Despite missing 10 games with a lower-body injury in December, only 10 forwards in the league have started more shifts in the defensive zone than Pinto, including his trusty sidekick Michael Amadio (who has three more).
According to Corsi statistics available from Natural Stat Trick, Pinto is deployed against opponents who on average, have a +0.389 relative Corsi For percentage, the highest amongst Senators. What does that mean? In plain terms: the competition he faces tends to drive play better than their teams do without them.
Right behind Pinto in that statistic on the Sens are Amadio (+0.262), Claude Giroux (+0.260), and the shutdown pair of Artem Zub (+0.271) and Jake Sanderson (+0.250). Amazingly, all of them have outscored their opposition at 5-on-5 this year.
“Pints and Amadio have done a solid job all year,” said Ridly Greig, who played briefly on their wing early in the season. “Pints is huge, he takes pride in it, shutting guys down. It takes relief off the top six to not be playing against those guys, so yeah, Pints has done a hell of a job all year.”
Pinto also leads the Sens in terms of the difficulties of where his shifts begin. He has a defensive zone start rate of 37.6 per cent, meaning, excluding changes that happen on-the-fly, he starts more than a third of his shifts 25 feet away from his own goal, versus starting just 18.2 per cent of his shifts in the opponents’ zone.
“It’s obviously that line that you rely on a lot, D-zone faceoffs, or whenever they play shutdown on other team’s top lines, but they have a role to play, we have a role to play, we’re all in this together,” said Claude Giroux, who has played parts of the season on Pinto’s wing.
“He’s playing well. He embraces his role, and obviously everybody knows about his defensive game, but he’s also got an offensive side to him. I’ve got to play a few games with year, and it’s a lot of fun to play with him.”
The offensive side that Giroux spoke of also had a career year in 2025–26, with Pinto recording a career-high 23 goals and 46 points. “I feel good, obviously a good season, making playoffs is obviously a big part of it,” said Pinto.
“But yeah, personally, I think I’m starting to play really good. I feel confident out there, and the last half, or the last quarter, I think I’m playing pretty good hockey.”
Pinto was rewarded with a four-year, $30 million contract extension on Nov. 13, a deal that begins next season and shows just how much faith the Senators organization have in the 25-year-old’s game. Only a couple of weeks after signing the extension, though, Pinto was injured and missed just over three weeks with a lower-body injury.
Before the injury, Pinto was averaging just under a goal every two games (12 goals in 26 games), and even more impressively, was doing it without much power play time. His 11 even-strength goals led the team. After he returned on Dec. 29, Pinto found the back of the net just once in his next 10 games.
“Yeah, obviously, I think it slows you down a little bit, coming back and trying to play catch up to a lot of guys that are playing every night. I think coming back was a little tough, but as time went on, I felt a lot better,” said Pinto, who finished the year out with eight goals and 17 points in his final 22 games.
“I feel way better, my body feels good, and yeah, I feel confident out there. Hopefully I can bring it to the playoffs.”
Pinto’s defence-first mentality seems a perfect fit for the postseason, and his emergence as a true shutdown centre will be key if the Senators are to upset the one-seed Hurricanes. These days, he also has no confusion about the style of play that Green wants from him and the team.
“I think that’s been Greener’s message all year, is win 2-1,” said Pinto. “It fits our game pretty well, we’re a checking team. I think that’s our identity and it fits our game, and I don’t think we’re going to be too sorry when we have a checking matchup the first couple of games.”
It’s certainly not a one-man show for the checking line, either. Nick Cousins has proved an effective piece of sandpaper that gets under the skin of opponents, and his linemate Amadio’s active stick has been referred to as one of the best in the league for almost the entire season now. What is it that makes Pinto so effective?
“He’s just above guys, his awareness [makes him special],” said Greig. “You think about a top guy having a guy like Pints around him all game, just being above him the whole game, it’s pretty frustrating. Limiting time and space with those guys is probably the biggest thing he does.”
Pinto has fit extremely well into Green’s system and forecheck-heavy approach. Often taking on the role of the “F3” (meaning the highest forward in the zone), Pinto is adept at anticipating passes and helping his defence out by clogging up the neutral zone.
“F3 definitely has multiple different reads he can make,” said Greig. “I think the biggest thing Greener wants is just to be above the guy. I feel like we don’t let out too many odd-man rushes, that’s when teams can obviously get scoring chances and whatnot. But yeah, just being above, I think if you can make a read and jump on pucks, I think it works well.”
And when it comes to the Franke J. Selke Trophy conversation, his name has certainly been in the mix, especially in a field without back-to-back winner Aleksander Barkov. If the Senators had a vote for the league’s top defensive forward, Pinto would be their clear choice, hands down.
“He’s definitely our Selke winner,” said Greig, a sentiment echoed last week by Tim Stützle.
“Obviously there’s a lot of good players out there,” continued Greig, “but yeah, he definitely deserves it for us. He’s been doing a hell of a job all year, shutting other top lines down. I wouldn’t be surprised [if he wins it].”
