For the second straight season, Ottawa Senators 2024 first-rounder Carter Yakemchuk has been caught up in the final wave of roster cuts. The Senators announced this afternoon that Yakemchuk has been loaned to the Belleville Senators of the American Hockey League to begin his professional hockey career. He’ll be joined there by Arthur Kaliyev, Jan Jenik, Hayden Hodgson, Mads Søgaard, and Lassi Thomson, who all cleared waivers on Monday for the purpose of being loaned to Belleville.
Senators head coach Travis Green said after practice on Monday, a few hours before the final cuts, that the club was being very careful to do what’s best for both Yakemchuk and the team.
“It’s never an easy decision when you’re talking about a young guy that we feel has a bright future in the NHL, and making sure that we can put him in the best place to succeed,” Green said. “It’s a delicate question and answer. So we’ve got to make sure that we put him in the right spot.
“At the end of the day, it’s about what’s going to help our team and what’s going to help him. And combining both into the right answer.”
The Senators had until 5:00 p.m. to submit a maximum roster of 23 players. But they slapped it down to 22, as the club also placed both Tyler Kleven and Drake Batherson on injured reserve on Monday. Both were injured in training camp, but neither injury is terribly serious, and both are said to be close to returning.
So Donovan Sebrango will remain in Ottawa for now as the 7th defenseman, and Olle Lycksell will stick around as the 13th forward while Kleven and Batherson continue to heal up.
Lycksell cleared waivers on Monday, so he’s waivers-exempt for the next 30 days or 10 NHL games. It’s possible he may see some action in a game where they feel like Kurtis MacDermid’s services aren’t required. On the blue line, the Sens might opt to go with Sebrango as Kleven’s natural left-side replacement, or have one of their excess righties move over and play on their wrong side.
Here’s the Senators’ 2025–26 roster as of now:
Forwards (13): Amadio, Cousins, Cozens, Eller, Giroux, Greig, Lycksell, MacDermid, Perron, Pinto, Stützle, Tkachuk, Zetterlund
IR: Batherson
Defensemen (7): Chabot, Jensen, Matinpalo, Sanderson, Sebrango, Spence, Zub
IR: Kleven
Goalies (2): Meriläinen, Ullmark
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