Five reasons the Senators are off to their best start in 12 years

The hill that the Ottawa Senators have chosen to start the season is to battle through adversity.

The Senators headed straight to the Ottawa International Airport on Sunday to head to New Jersey to prepare to face the Devils on Monday night at the Prudential Center.

The Senators, who moved their record to 4-1-0 with a remarkable 3-2 comeback victory over the Nashville Predators on Saturday night at the Canadian Tire Centre, are off to their best start in 12 years.

And they have achieved this without their top defensive pairing of Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub.

The former hasn’t suited up since Sanderson left the club’s season opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Oct. 3, while the latter is closing in on a return from a knee injury Zub suffered in April.

The expectation is that Zub will play soon because he has resumed skating with his teammates, but Sanderson remains out indefinitely. He has been skating on his own, but not with the Senators.

The Senators made another roster move on Sunday by placing defenceman Cam Crotty on injured reserve and recalling Jorian Donovan from their American Hockey League affiliate in Belleville.

Crotty was a late scratch on Thursday when the Senators played Philadelphia, and coach Travis Green told reporters “he wasn’t feeling well” after the skate.

So, why the hot start? Here are a few reasons why the Senators are 4-1-0 for the first time since the 2014-15 campaign:

The Senators’ top centre is doing it all at both ends of the ice.

He has four goals and eight points in the club’s first five games of the year, and if there was any doubt that Stützle would be among the National Hockey League’s elite, that has been erased. He also has a plus-five rating in that stretch.

Stützle, 24, played more than 26 minutes against the Predators and contributed a goal and an assist. He’s on the ice in all situations, and even Green noted on Saturday, “I’ve got to watch Tim’s minutes because he likes to play a lot.”

He looks like someone who is determined to take his game to the next level, and he is being followed by the rest of the club. His goal on Nashville’s Matt Murray in the shootout was filthy, and Stützle has been a factor in every game this season.

Ullmark made 16 stops in the club’s victory over the Predators.

He wasn’t called on much against Nashville, but he made a huge stop on Roman Josi on a breakaway late in the third and halted Steven Stamkos in the skills contest to secure the victory.

Ullmark has won his last eight regular-season starts, if you include four straight victories to close out last season. He woke up on Sunday as one of the top-ranked goaltenders with a 1.34 goals-against average and a .942 save percentage. He’s stopped 81 of the 86 shots he’s faced.

After his struggles on and off the ice last season, it looks and feels like Ullmark is in a better place. He’s playing with confidence, and that has led to success.

“He’s been great from training camp on,” Green said. “He’s looked sharp. He played great again (Saturday night). He made a couple of big saves when we needed him. It’s great to see.”

The Senators have had their share of injuries to deal with through the first five games of the year.

The club will likely be without winger William Eklund for at least two months after he suffered a devastating ankle injury in the club’s 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers in Thursday’s home opener.

The Senators were fortunate that winger Andre Burakovsky was able to make his season debut Saturday after he suffered an undisclosed ailment in the club’s final pre-season game against the Montreal Canadiens on Sept. 29.

Ottawa is living a little dangerously at the moment.

Four of the 15 goals they’ve scored in five games this season have come from Stützle. Drake Batherson scored his third of the year to tie it up 2-2 with the goalie pulled against the Predators, but the Senators need more from their forward group.

Second-line centre Dylan Cozens picked up his first point of the year against Nashville, and that trend has to change.

The Senators are a wagon defensively. They don’t give up a lot in the way of chances and do a good job protecting the middle of the ice.

They went 22 minutes and 22 seconds without a shot against the Preds, but you never got the feeling that the Senators were out of it. They were pushing hard in the third, but had a tough time getting shots through.

“They believe they can win any night, every night,” said Green. “And I think they understand the way we play, the identity that we want to play with, the urgency that we want to play with, with the puck and away from the puck.”

Centre Shane Pinto, who scored the shootout winner, said the club’s attitude is different.

“Just a different mojo,” said Pinto. “I feel like positivity throughout. I think in the second period, the intermission, pretty upbeat in the room. We knew we were going to come, and I think overall, the last two weeks, we’ve just had a good kind of mindset going into games.”

Thomas Chabot has done a tremendous job rallying the troops.

The longest-serving player in the Ottawa dressing room has taken the captain’s “C” he wears on his chest to heart. He’s averaged 27:07 through the first five games.

That has Chabot ranked No. 3 in the league behind Zack Werenski of the Columbus Blue Jackets and Quinn Hughes of the Minnesota Wild.

The Ottawa blue line is banged up, and Chabot has had to pick up the slack.

“Not surprising,” Green told the Ottawa Citizen’s Callum Fraser on Thursday when asked about how Chabot has handled the added workload. “Chabby’s more than capable of playing 27-30 minutes like a lot of top ‘D’ in the league. I don’t think we’d like to have all of our players playing that much, but he’s capable of it.”

All these ingredients have added up to a strong start.