Ottawa hands the C to Chabot, the Senator who never left

Ottawa gave the C to the guy who never left, and that's the right call for a franchise that spent the summer getting left. Thomas Chabot is the Senators' 11th captain. He takes over from Brady Tkachuk, who is now wearing a Panthers sweater next to his brother.

GM Steve Staios and coach Travis Green made it official Tuesday, four days before the opener in Toronto. In a Canadian market, you don't hand out a captaincy that close to the Leafs game by accident. This was the message: the room is Chabot's now.

Why it's Chabot

He's the longest-tenured Senator. Drafted 18th overall in 2015, he's been in the organization since 2016-17 and has played 569 regular-season games for Ottawa, with 78 goals and 335 points. He wore an A starting in 2020-21.

He's 29, and his contract carries an $8 million cap hit through 2027-28, the same season Tkachuk's deal runs out in Florida.

"Thomas exemplifies everything we want in an Ottawa Senator," Staios said. "He's committed to the city and to the organization."

In Ottawa, that word "committed" is doing a lot of work. This is a market that watched Alfredsson go to Detroit, Karlsson go to San Jose and Stone go to Vegas. Now the captain went south by trade. A captain who wants to be there is worth something here that it isn't in Tampa or Dallas.

What the numbers say

Chabot put up 31 points in 57 games last season, about a 45-point pace, and averaged 22:35 a night. The number that tells you more came in the playoffs. In the four-game sweep by Carolina, he led every player on both teams at 31:07 a night. Green already leaned on him like a captain before he gave him the letter.

The alternates are Claude Giroux, Tim Stützle and Jake Sanderson. That's the part I'd watch. Sanderson is the franchise defenseman of the next decade, and giving him an A instead of the C tells you Ottawa wants the kid to grow into it, not wear it at 24.

File under: Board room / Canadian market

There's a date on the calendar that writes itself.

Florida visits Ottawa on Oct. 21, and Brady Tkachuk comes home to a building that loved him and a captain who replaced him.

Ottawa got the ninth and 25th picks in this year's draft for him, plus a conditional 2029 first and a 2027 second. That trade gets its first real grading that night.

The read: Chabot is the safe pick and the correct one. Stützle and Sanderson are the future, Giroux is the past, and Chabot is the bridge that doesn't want to leave. In Ottawa, after this summer, that's worth the letter.