Ottawa Senators sign veteran defenseman Travis Hamonic to two-year contract

The Ottawa Senators announced the signing of Travis Hamonic to a two-year contract worth $1.1 million annually. The deal carries an NMC, meaning Hamonic can’t be sent to the minors or traded without his permission.

The 13-year NHL veteran played the 2022-23 season with the Senators. He scored six goals and 21 points in 75 games. Hamonic averaged 18:34 of ice time this past season but played a lot of games of over 20 minutes to fill in the void left by Artem Zub’s injury that left him out of the lineup for 29 games.

Hamonic is a bottom-pairing defenseman who excels at penalty killing but not much else. He’s a below average defender but he does chip in offensively more than most bottom-pairing defensemen. He also has a very powerful slapshot which he wields liberally.

As a right-handed defenseman, Hamonic finds himself sitting behind Zub and in competition with Jacob Bernard-Docker to make the lineup in October. The Senators have a glutton of left-handed defensemen including Thomas Chabot, Jakob Chychrun, Jake Sanderson, and Erik Brannstrom. One of those players will be slotting into the right side in the top-four. That leaves two spots open for Brannstrom, Hamonic, Bernard-Docker or even Tyler Kleven to fill this season.

Brannstrom will almost certainly be pencilled into the LD3 slot on the bottom pair. It is a coin toss at this point whether Bernard-Docker or Hamonic will start the season in the RD3 slot. Senators’ general manager Pierre Dorion has said that the RD3 slot is Bernard-Docker’s spot to lose this season. However, they just signed Hamonic to a multi-year deal and he is a veteran so it will be interesting to see who ends up playing more often.

Hamonic has played 793 games in the NHL with the New York Islanders, Calgary Flames, Vancouver Canucks, and Senators. He has scored 50 goals and 229 points along with 715 penalty minutes in the span.