Why 2024-25 Was The Best Season Yet For Senators Centre Tim Stützle

Yahoo

13-05-2025

Ottawa Senators centre Tim Stützle just enjoyed the best season of his NHL career.
It might not look that way on the surface if you look at the back of his hockey card and compare his traditional statistics in 2024-25 against previous seasons.
It is not that Timmy's 24 goals and 79 points in 82 games are modest. They represent the second-highest totals in his career, but Stützle's strides in his all-around game made him one of the most valuable forwards in the entire NHL last season.
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Evolving-Hockey's 'wins above replacement' (WAR) metric attempts to quantify a player's total contribution as a single value, measured in wins, compared to what a replacement-level player would bring to a team.
According to their proprietary WAR data, only three forwards this season posted a higher WAR than Tim Stützle's 3.8. These players are Leon Draisaitl (4.7), Connor McDavid (4.1), and David Pastrnak (3.9). WAR is obviously not an infallible metric. It is a calculated statistic that estimates how much more valuable a player is than a league-average player. In light of that, considering how elite those aforementioned players are, it is pretty good company that Stützle is keeping.
HockeyViz's data corroborates Evolving-Hockey's data about Stützle's on-ice impacts, both offensively and defensively.
When Juice is on the ice, great things happen for the Senators.
The Senators struggled to produce results at five-on-five, but when Stützle was on the ice, the team did a significantly better job generating offensive chances and expected goals with him on the ice than off.
Conversely, the same is true regarding the team's ability to suppress the opposition's offence when Stützle is on the ice.
In speaking to reporters at his end-of-the-season availability, Stützle believed he made significant defensive improvements this season.
"I think my two-way game and trying to be able to play better defensively," the Senators first line centre said. "There are still lots of improvements to be made. There are still lots of errors I can (improve), but I think the most improvements were in my defence game and decision-making."
Using Evolving-Hockey's 'total defence' (DEF) metric that combines a player's contributions at five-on-five and while shorthanded into one encapsulating value, the 2024-25 campaign was far and away Stützle's best defensive season. In terms of defensive value created, the only other positive season he had was his sophomore 2021-22 season (0.8 DEF). During the 2024-25 season, he amassed a 4.1 DEF value, more than five times the value of that sophomore campaign.
In fact, it was one of the best defensive seasons by a Senators forward in the modern analytics era - ranking amongst staunch defenders like Chris Kelly, Mark Stone, and Erik Condra.
For the Senators to ascend the Eastern Conference standings and put themselves into the Stanley Cup contender discussion, they will need their young core's growth to continue.
Stützle's ongoing evolution is an integral piece of that puzzle.
One of the more impactful lessons of the Senators' first round is how important faceoffs can be.
The Next Big Thing? A Glance At How Top Senators Prospect Carter Yakemchuk Fared This Season For Ottawa Senators fans, the sting of their team's first-round elimination is starting to fade. Soon, that disappointment will give way to excitement for the future, and much of that excitement centers around young NHL prospects.
Across large sample sizes, there is no significant correlation between winning and losing draws.
However, as the Leafs' success in the dot showed, they can be essential situationally. The Maple Leafs scored four goals in just 38 seconds of power-play ice time early in the series because of their ability to win draws cleanly and quickly gain puck possession.
In the postseason, Stützle was the only centre on the Senators with a faceoff success rate higher than 50 percent. The Leafs dominance in this facet of the game, however, reinforced how it is an area that Stützle wants to improve upon.
"Every single part of my game, I still want to improve, but I think faceoffs was a big point," the Senators centre acknowledged. "I don't even know what my percentage was years before, but it couldn't be too high.
"Obviously, the coaching staff didn't trust me taking those responsible faceoffs. I want to be a guy who can take those faceoffs and be on the ice in those moments. (The coaches) showed me what I've got to do to (improve) and win more faceoffs. Obviously, you can't trust a guy whose faceoff percentage is 35 percent, and you have another guy whose faceoff percentage is 57. You're obviously taking the guy with 57. We have a lot of good faceoff guys on the team, so that motivates me to get better."
Interestingly, another area where Stützle wanted to improve was on the offensive side of the puck. Given his skill set and near point-per-game production, it would be easy to believe that component would be the one he would be most comfortable with.
That is not the case, as Tim explained.
"In the offensive zone, knowing when to shoot and when to pass, I've struggled a little bit with that this year," he admitted. "I had a lot of scoring chances throughout games where I couldn't really capitalize.
"Sometimes it's bounces, and sometimes it's just picking a better spot. I'm going to try and get better at that - just knowing when to shoot and picking my spots. That's really important, and it's going to help me continue to get better."
The numbers corroborate Stützle's indecision.
Although his five-on-five goals per 60 rate (G/60) was the third-highest of his career per NaturalStatTrick, many of Stützle's underlying rates plummeted.
Stützle's Individual Five-on-five per 60 minutes of ice time rates:
Shots on goal: 5.43 (lowest of career)
Shots (iCF/60): 9.99 (lowest of career)
Scoring chances (iSCF/60): 6.12 (lowest of career)
High-danger chances (iHDCF/60): 2.64 (second-lowest of career)
An emphasis on playing responsible defensive hockey without cheating for offence could certainly hamper those numbers, but it is fair to point out that in many instances this season, the Senators prioritized shot quality over quantity.
After scoring 39 goals during the 2022-23 season, assuming he can flirt with that benchmark every year is unreasonable. That season, he combined his highest volume of shots (228) with his career-best shooting percentage (17.1) to produce his best offensive season.
Stützle acknowledged dealing with some wrist injuries over the past few seasons when discussing faceoffs, so they probably negatively impacted his ability, or willingness, to shoot the puck. Despite the injuries, he is still a career 13.2 percent shooter, including a 14.8 percent success rate in 2024-25, so he can still fire it.
Even if his future shooting percentages stay closer to his career norm, he can be more productive by playing more selfishly and shooting the puck more.
Graeme NicholsThe Hockey News - Ottawa
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