The Ottawa Senators are going into the 2026-27 season with a lot of confidence in their roster, and their depth at centre will be one of their biggest strengths. The Senators have formed one of the deepest centre groups in the league with Tim Stutzle, Dylan Cozens, and Shane Pinto leading the way.
Even beyond the top three, the Senators have some good options to play centre. This will be an in-depth look at all of the centres in the organization, whether it be playing in the NHL or in the American Hockey League (AHL) with the Belleville Senators.
International, college, and junior players will not be included in this list. Keep an eye out for Dayton Reimer’s prospect pyramid here at The Hockey Writers before the season starts for a deeper look at the prospects.
Tim Stutzle, Elite First-Line Centre
Through six NHL seasons, Stutzle has established himself as an elite first-line centre. He has four straight 70-point campaigns, reaching 90 points as his highest total. The 2025-26 season was his second-best season in both points and goals, with 34 goals and 83 points.
Stutzle’s game is built on speed and his creative offensive abilities. He ranked in the 96th percentile or higher in max skating speed and all three ranges of speed bursts tracked by NHL Edge. Not only does he have great straight-line speed, but he has great edgework and can dance around defenders quickly.
The speed Stutzle plays with does more than just help him make a play or get into position; it is also a big part of why he has a better penalty differential than everybody but Connor McDavid.
Offensively, Stutzle has now posted 34 and 39 goals in a season, and he could get even more. It wouldn’t be a shock to many if he were to push for 50 goals in a season, with 40 goals as a realistic target.
The thing about Stutzle’s goal-scoring is that he can do it any way. He scores most of his goals when tight to the net, and that is because he has great stick-handling ability to deke out the goaltender, but he is also quick on rebounds. The rest of his goals come from mid-range, and that is thanks to his great shot.
With Travis Green as the head coach, Stutzle has been trusted with a regular penalty-killing role. While the Senators have struggled when down a player, Stutzle has been a bright spot there. He plays a ‘power-kill’ style where he can carry the puck and play aggressively thanks to his speed and puck-handling.
At even strength, Stutzle isn’t as strong defensively. While he makes up for it with all of his other talents, he isn’t exactly in the Selke Trophy conversation. That isn’t to say that he is a detriment to the team, either. He can be trusted in the defensive zone, but with some of the other options available, he isn’t put there in critical moments as much as others.
The second line of Cozens, Brady Tkachuk, and Ridly Greig worked very well, but that left one of Stutzle’s wingers being either Fabian Zetterlund or Claude Giroux for most of the season.
Both players bring a lot of value with their given roles, but a first-line spot beside Stutzle should be filled by a true top-six winger. Drake Batherson works very well alongside Stutzle, but if there was another elite winger on that line, Stutzle could hit another level.
The acquisition of William Eklund is interesting. His play style seems like it will work better alongside Stutzle than either the Cozens or Pinto lines. If Eklund plays alongside Stutzle and Batherson, we could see all three have huge seasons and set career-highs across the board.
The Senators are in great shape with Stutzle as their top centre.
Dylan Cozens, Strong Second-Line Centre…Or Winger?
Since being acquired from the Buffalo Sabres, Cozens has been such a great addition to the Senators. He plays a physical game with a lot of speed and good offensive skills. His diverse skill set makes him a good option for a second-line centre who can be used in any role.
Cozens is very strong along the boards and in puck battles. He plays the body and has a good stick, making him one of the hardest forechecking players on the team. Once he gets the puck, he is good at figuring out where to go with it.
His ability to drive the net to create chaos helps everybody. Whether he can score it himself or get in the way of everybody else, he has a big presence in the offensive zone. After pushing for 30 goals last season, expecting that out of him again would be more than fair.
As mentioned above, his line with Tkachuk and Greig was one of the best the Senators had last season, but of course, that won’t be a trio this season after Tkachuk’s departure.
Eklund and Cozens could work well given their speed and how their somewhat opposite skill sets can complement each other, but Stutzle is the likely centre for him. With Batherson, we have seen him do well with both Stutzle and Cozens as his centre, so that is more of a toss-up.
It would be fair to expect Greig to remain on that line, and the other winger will be one of Zetterlund, Andre Burakovsky, or Warren Foegele, assuming Batherson stays with Stutzle.
That would leave a lot of pressure on Cozens to drive the line, which he hasn’t had to do in Ottawa thus far. With Greig working very well, he still only posted 35 points. Greig’s presence helped Cozens and Tkachuk play with more space, and while that was a career-high, he wasn’t a major factor in Cozens’ offensive success.
It will be interesting to see what wingers end up playing the most with Cozens. He has a spot on the power play where he could take over Tkachuk’s position close to the net. He can also be used on the circles, as he has a strong shot, too.
Because of the questions surrounding the other winger spot, there has been speculation that Cozens could take that spot, with Pinto playing at centre. At the 2026 IIHF World Championship, he played on the wing alongside Macklin Celebrini and Sidney Crosby, which probably makes offense a bit easier, but he looked to be playing some of his best hockey.
Prior to the World Championship, Cozens and the Senators were swept in the first round, but Cozens was one of the few positives to take from the disappointing showing from the club.
Whether Cozens ends up on the wing or not, he is a great top-six player and will be a big part of any success the Senators find.
Shane Pinto, Selke-Level Third-Line Centre
Having two top centres in Stutzle and Cozens is a great thing for the team to have, but when you top it off with Pinto, who finished sixth in Selke Trophy voting last season, it makes for one of the most elite trios in the league.
The Hockey Writers’ Justin Giampietro ranked the Senators’ centre core fifth in the league, and stated, “Dylan Cozens and Shane Pinto could be the best middle-six center duo in the league, with the latter taking on some tough assignments.”
Pinto started 2025-26 on a heater with 12 goals in his first 24 games before missing time with an injury. He signed a four-year extension that kicked in this offseason, paying him $7.5 million annually.
Considering the state of the NHL’s salary cap, having a centre pushing 50 points and bringing Selke-level defense on a deal like that is well worth it. The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn’s model gave the Pinto deal an A- rating. In fact, along with Pinto’s great contract, Luszczyszyn gave Stutzle an A rating and Cozens a B+ rating, helping lead the way to the Senators being the third-most cap-efficient team, according to his model. (from ‘NHL contract efficiency rankings 2026: Which teams spend their money most wisely?’, The Athletic, July 29, 2026)
Pinto showed last season that he can be a regular 25-goal, 25-assist player, but if the suggested idea of him playing on the second line with Cozens on the wing, he could push for up to 60 points.
In his role from last season, Pinto played alongside Michael Amadio and Nick Cousins, who made for a great third line, and oftentimes, Giroux would replace Cousins, and they would make up one of the best defensive trios across the league.
Pinto has shown that he can play to the level of a second-line centre, but he plays his best on the third line, and the Senators have an excellent trio down the middle, which recent Stanley Cup-winning teams have shown is necessary.
Stephen Halliday, Promising Depth Centre
After making the jump to the NHL last season, 24-year-old Stephen Halliday had done a great job in a fourth-line role, and did even better in his time back in the AHL.
With the NHL club, Halliday posted 11 points in 31 games as a rookie, which landed him at fourth on the team ranking for points per 60 minutes. His offense exploded in the AHL, too. After posting 51 points across 71 games in 2024-25, Halliday ended with 29 points in 29 games last season.
He was battling Lars Eller throughout the season, and that led to him not getting the full-time role, but heading into this season, there isn’t a ton of competition for the job, and Halliday is certainly going to get more playing time.
Halliday spent most of his minutes with Zetterlund, making for a very offensively talented fourth line. While that line did well defensively, they utilized their ability to score and move the puck to play their shutdown job by playing offense.
There is definitely room for Halliday to keep growing at the NHL level, and while it will be hard to continue climbing the lineup behind the top three centres, if Pinto moves to the second line and Halliday is slotted on the third line with more responsibility, it could be great for his development.
Daoust, Bakke Olsen Lead AHL Call-Up Candidates
Looking beyond the projected NHL centres, there isn’t a ton to be excited about coming right away from centres.
The Senators brought in Eskild Bakke Olsen after the 2026 World Championship, where the undrafted forward posted five points in 10 games and was a big part of Norway’s run to a bronze medal. Throughout last season, Bakke Olsen posted 32 points in the Swedish Hockey League.
Steven Ellis joined the Locked On Senators Podcast to talk about Bakke Olsen back in June and stated, “Any time Norway was doing something well at the World Championship, [Bakke Olsen] was involved, whether it be the two-way game, or when he was winning essentially every one of his battles, getting the puck where it needed to be, getting pucks in the slot, this was a guy that was working hard.”
While a full season in the AHL will likely do the 24-year-old well, if he proves that he can compete on the North American ice surface, his mature game could transition to the NHL rather quickly.
Philippe Daoust has been in the Senators’ organization since being picked in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft, and while he hasn’t gotten his shot in the NHL yet, the thin depth outside of the NHL roster might pave the path for him to get his chance.
Daoust exploded offensively last season, scoring more than double his previous career high, recording 50 points in 63 games.
After dealing with some unfortunate injuries and struggling to stay available, he has suddenly become a big part of the organizational depth. The Senators will need to give him some NHL action to see how he transitions to the faster pace. Skating and his pace are the biggest concerns about his game, but last season he found a way to be a positive asset in spite of that.
Silver Seven Sens had a great breakdown of what Daoust brings to the club, too.
Behind those two, the centre depth is pretty bleak. After moving on from AHL centres Jan Jenik and Garrett Pilon, there will be some competition for ice time. Ryan Suzuki will join Belleville and could push for an NHL call-up, but would likely be behind the other two listed above. Oskar Pettersson, a natural winger, played some centre in the bottom-six last season, but is an unlikely candidate for Ottawa to call upon.
If injuries pile up, the Senators will likely look to Cousins or Giroux to play more centre than to go deep into the AHL lineup. Assuming the group stays healthy, they are in great shape. Even with an injury or two, they have players to step in, but they don’t have an abundance of NHL-ready centres beyond the top four.
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