And with a flurry of way-too-early reactions to Training Camp line combinations, hockey is back.
William Eklund and Fabian Zetterlund are gonna be unstoppable, by the way.
In their first on-ice session, with the doors closed to the public, the Ottawa Senators eased their way into the 2026/2027 season. The 24 remaining best friends will play their first preseason game in four days and they’ll do it for real in a little over two weeks.
16 days till Sens hockey!
Drake Batherson’s big ol’ contract dominated the headlines leading up to Camp and today a lot of the talk was about Benjamin Hutton and our first look at potential line combinations. Also watching closely to see if Travis Green would kill anyone on opening day.
Up front, Tim Stützle had the richest man in Sens history on his right side and a roll of the dice to his left. William Eklund and Fabian Zetterlund were inseparable as teammates in San Jose and only Dylan Cozens could keep ’em apart today. The most important player on Ottawa’s blueline was paired with the future of Ottawa’s blueline, the Captain was paired with Jordan Spence and there were dangerously low levels of Zub. 57 players showed up and every single one of ’em wanted to be here. Oddly refreshing.
Here’s a look at some line combinations on Day 1…
Burakovsky – Stützle – Batherson
Eklund – Cozens – Zetterlund
Cousins – Pinto – Tomasino
Blais – Greig – Amadio
Giroux – Halliday – Boucher
Sanderson – Yakemchuk
Chabot – Spence
Kleven – Stanley
Hutton – Matinpalo
Ullmark
Ersson
Meriläinen
Keep it simple. Would hate to pull a muscle on the first day of Camp.