Spring has not been good for the Ottawa Senators’ blue line. Jake Sanderson went down early in March, Thomas Chabot and Nick Jensen suffered long-term injuries at the end of the month, and when Sanderson returned on Apr. 4, he ended up replacing the recently-injured Tyler Kleven, and Carter Yakemchuk went down later that day. With a playoff spot on the line, the Senators were suddenly without four of their top six defencemen.
For many teams, this is a recipe for disaster. However, the Senators have won five of their last six games, jumping over the Boston Bruins to clinch the last Eastern playoff spot. It wasn’t long ago that the Senators looked like a playoff longshot, but despite everything going on around them, they’ll be back in the dance for a second season in a row. A lot of credit needs to be given to Jordan Spence, who took on a huge role during Chabot and Sanderson’s injuries after spending most of the season on the third pair. His rise has finally given the Senators the top-four defenceman they were looking for all along.
A Slow Start for a Big Trade Target
The Senators entered the season looking better than they did in 2024-25, but with a few question marks across their lineup. Although Daily Faceoff’s Mike Gould wrote that Ottawa had a genuinely formidable defensive group, many still expected the team to target a top-four defenceman at the trade deadline. Jensen was degrading rapidly, leaving a significant hole on the right side, and no one on the current roster looked like they could fill it.
Spence looked like an option. With the Los Angeles Kings last season, he started on the third pair before moving up to the second, and in both circumstances, he made his defensive partner better, both on offence and defence. Following the deal, general manager Steve Staios was clearly ecstatic with his newest acquisition. “I think what’s really underrated is his competitiveness,” he said on the Coming in Hot Podcast. “He’s not the biggest player, Nick Jensen is not the biggest player, but we saw what he could bring to the table and how he defended…I think Spence brings a lot of that dynamic as well.”Â
However, when he hit the ice in Ottawa, he was frequently a healthy scratch in favour of Niklas Matinpalo, playing just five games in October. He didn’t have the trust of head coach Travis Green. It’s unclear why; in his first five games, he led the team with a 64.02 Corsi For Percentage (CF%) and a 62.5 Goals For Percentage (GF%) at five-on-five, the highest among the team’s defenders. He may have been on the third pair, but he was still averaging nearly 19 minutes a night.
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By November, Spence was a regular in the lineup, but wasn’t producing as regularly; his average total shot attempts dipped from 4.4 per game to 3.1, as did his average hits and blocks per game. But he remained a fantastic possession player, with his CF% and GF% remaining high among the Senators, and his giveaways per game decreased from 1.6 to 0.9. Over the next several months, he settled into a regular rhythm. His ice time settled to about 18 minutes per night, and he was a positive possession player who could move the puck well. He seemed comfortable on the third pair, leading the Senators to look elsewhere for a top-four defenceman.
“I have to be responsible defensively,” Spence said in January. “Playing with (Kleven), pretty much from the start of the season to now, I just have to keep it simple. We play well together just because we have different strengths. When we communicate and execute well, we’re a really good defensive pair. I just think we have to keep improving, keep communicating, and I think it will be good for the second half.”
Spence’s Rapid Rise to a Top-Four Defenceman
That all changed on Mar. 23, 2026. In that game, Spence clocked his highest ice time of the season, skating for 26:44 minutes; in his last 60 games, he had logged over 20 minutes of ice time on just 10 times, and never more than 25 minutes in a single game. But over the next six games, Spence didn’t play less than 22 minutes, topping out with a 30:48-minute performance on Apr. 2.
The best part – Spence’s numbers still looked excellent. Despite leading the team in total ice time, his 52.79 CF% was bested only by Sanderson among Senators’ defenders, and his 55.18 GF% is the highest among players who played all 11 games to date. Better yet, he had three goals and seven points in that span, a 24-goal, 57-point pace over 82 games. That’s over a 25-point pace increase from what he was doing previously while on the third pair.
Of course, none of this matters if the Senators aren’t winning, but while Spence has been eating minutes, Ottawa has been the second-hottest team just behind the Montreal Canadiens while allowing just 27 goals, giving them the seventh-lowest goals-against per game average in the NHL. The team has also been in the top-10 league-wide in power play and penalty kill, which isn’t something you’d expect from a team missing several defencemen. But Spence locked down the blueline, giving the Senators a chance to win every night, and they did.
Chabot returned from injury to play the Florida Panthers on Apr. 9, and as expected, Spence’s ice time returned to normal. In the last two games, he’s logged 19:23 and 18:13, a far cry from his 30-minute night not long ago. But he’s remained the Senators’ fourth-most-used defenceman and is currently lining up beside Chabot on the second pair. Although he thrives as a puck-moving defenceman, he’s strong defensively. In almost every metric, from his 8.68 expected goals against (xGA) or his 3.0 goals against per 60 minutes (GA/60), he’s just a slight step behind Zub, the Senators’ top shutdown defenceman. At 5-foot-11, he may not have the size of an NHL defenceman, but he has the speed and intelligence to get it done.
That’s all the Senators need right now – a player who can get it done, night in and night out – and thankfully, they had one all along in Spence.
