Chabot cementing himself as a top NHL defenceman

When the Ottawa Senators inked Thomas Chabot to an eight-year, $64-million dollar contract back in 2020, there was hope the team had found their next stud defenceman. With continued development, there was the thought he could be the anchor of a premium first pairing — one that could drive Ottawa back into the postseason, just as Erik Karlsson did for so many years.

At times, it has been a challenge to gauge where Chabot’s ceiling would be as a player, owing in no small part to him developing amidst a very deep organizational rebuild. To be fair to Ottawa, Chabot has had a couple of up-and-down seasons, which posed legitimate questions about his consistency.

But during this, his age-27 season, Chabot is cementing himself as one of the best at the position. In fact, Chabot has been so good for Ottawa in the opening two months of the season he’d be a reasonable addition to any early-season Norris Trophy talk.

Unfortunately, the rest of the Senators lineup hasn’t quite held up their end of the bargain in this attempt to pull the franchise out of the rebuilding abyss. For as dominant as Chabot has been, the rest of the lineup has been equally as poor – so much so that the Senators playoff hopes are starting to slip away.

Approaching American Thanksgiving, the Senators have dropped seven of their past 10 games and are now fighting with the Montreal Canadiens in the division cellar.

There are problems abound: the team’s scoring has completely dried up, and neither Linus Ullmark nor Anton Forsberg can buy a save right now. (Of particular note, Ottawa’s all-situations save percentage is now under 88 per cent, good for 27th in the NHL.)

But I’m most interested in the Chabot splits, because I think that’s what best tells the story of this Jekyll-and-Hyde Ottawa team. Consider some of the on-ice/off-ice splits this season, with and without Chabot:

It doesn’t matter if you are analyzing the more data-rich units of measurement like shot and scoring chances, or more sensitive data sets like real goal differentials, there is just a substantial cliff Ottawa jumps off the moment Chabot leaves the ice.

Real goals best tell the story as to why Ottawa is lingering near the bottom of the Atlantic Division, though. Ottawa has outscored opponents 24 to 20 (+4) with Chabot deployed; when he’s off, they have been outscored 26 to 14 (-12).

Chabot plays heavy minutes, typically with Ottawa’s most skilled players and against the opponent’s toughest matchups. This year, head coach Travis Green has tied him to off-season acquisition Nick Jensen; the forward group in front typically includes some combination of Tim Stützle, Drake Batherson, and Claude Giroux. A group like this should be winning their minutes, and so far, so good.

I want to zoom in on that same group of forwards because it hammers the point home. All four are top six-calibre attackers; all four see stunning offensive degradation when playing with Ottawa’s second or third pairing. And again, it’s not about the decline, it’s about the size of the decline:

Those are shocking splits and at the heart of Ottawa’s difficult November, where they are shooting an awful 5.3 per cent (31st in NHL) at even strength.

Again, it’s not about the drop-off, it’s about the size of the drop-off. Ottawa looks like one of the most dangerous offences in the league when they have their best units on the ice, but as soon as their forwards play without the top-pairing behind them, they turn into a completely ineffective and punchless attack.

Those non-Chabot minutes have turned into a nasty combination of nonexistent offence with weak goaltending behind it, a recipe you typically find from draft lottery-bound teams. And it’s not as if Ottawa prepared for this scenario. This was an organization that was hopeful that imported veterans and improving prospects could tie together to complete one of the deeper lineups in the league. Instead, they look top-heavy at best.

Perhaps Chabot, to this end, is bringing Ottawa back full circle to the Karlsson days. Karlsson’s legacy in Ottawa was just as much about peak career dominance as it was trying to pull an otherwise mediocre lineup deep into postseasons. The rest of the roster never held up its end of the bargain, clouding Karlsson’s legacy.

The good news for the Senators is Chabot is under contract through the 2028-29 season, so there will be several more bites at the apple. But Green and company need more from the rest of the lineup, or this postseason drought will extend to eight years.

Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey