Josh Norris’ season is over.
The Senators confirmed Norris will be forced to undergo a third procedure on his surgically repaired left shoulder.
It is devastating news for a player who was identified as a core piece the organization can build around.
The centre’s first sustained an injury to his shoulder at the world junior hockey championship in 2019. Norris eventually reinjured the shoulder off a faceoff draw during the team’s October 22nd game against the Coyotes in 2022. Rather than elect for surgery right away, Norris decided to go through the rehabilitation process in hopes that he could return to the lineup in the second half of the 2022-23 season. He would return for three games in January before reinjuring it in the third period of the Senators’ January 21st game against the Jets while reaching for a puck. His second surgery cost Norris the remainder of the 2022-23 season.
The specifics and extent of Norris’ injuries have never been fully disclosed, so it is difficult to project how long he will be out.
The organization is optimistic that Norris will be healthy and ready for training camp in the fall, but what are they supposed to say?
His second surgery, which occurred earlier in the season, forced Norris to miss training camp and the first three games of the 2023-24 season. There is a chance that his next procedure will be less severe than what he endured last year, but only time will tell.
That hasn’t stopped some from believing that his career could very well be over.
That may sound sensationalist, but Sens fans are understandably sensitive regarding shoulder injuries. Over the last few years, the team has lost Norris (x3), Shane Pinto, Derek Stepan, and Colin White.
Losing a second-six forward is pretty significant, but Norris’ injuries have limited him to 58 games across the last two seasons. That matters because his last two injuries will have followed a career season in which he registered 35 goals and 55 points. A season that helped land Norris an eight-year, $63.6 million contract worth an average annual value of $7.95 million.
The concerns are obvious. A lot of money and time is invested in a player who cannot stay in the lineup. When Norris has been able to play, he has performed at a lower level than he exhibited during the 2021-22 season. In fairness to the player, it is not like there are no reasons to explain why his performance suffered.
Expecting a player to perform after he missed almost the entirety of the 2022-23 season and dropping him into the lineup after he missed training camp feels unreasonable. To do it while playing in the unstructured system that the Senators were deploying under D.J. Smith? Forget about it.
Norris would tally 16 goals and 30 points in 50 games, but his underlying five-on-five numbers were a concern.
Looking at his rate stats at NaturalStatTrick.com, Norris was generating fewer goals (G/60), fewer primary assists (A1/60), points (Pts/60), while the Senators’ generated a lower share of the goals (42.62 GF%, 44.56 xGF%), chances (44.63 SCF%) and shots (48.96 CF%) while Norris was on the ice.
2021-22: 1.07 G/60, 0.40 A1/60, 1.87 Pts/60
2023-24: 0.94 G/60, 0.09 A1/60, 1.40 Pts/60
Norris’ isolated impacts on the offensive and defensive sides of the puck were not particularly strong per HockeyViz.
The question of whether Norris can bounce back will be an important one for the Senators to figure out. Players have undergone three shoulder surgeries before and come out the other side. The most recent example is a player who Senators fans have grown accustomed to watching this season in Vladimir Tarasenko.
The Russian winger had three surgeries performed on his left shoulder between 2018 and 2020. While Norris was still a teenager when he experienced his first procedure, Tarasenko had his first as a 26-year-old.
Tarasenko’s also transpired over three years while Norris will now have his third procedure in five years. Without knowing the intricate details of their respective surgeries, the hope is that the younger player who has the procedures done over a longer period will be able to bounce back better than Tarasenko did.
It is not that Tarasenko’s been a bad player, he can still play. It’s just that he no longer resembles the player he was during that 2014-2019 run. Since his third surgery, Tarasenko only enjoyed one more season in which he scored 30-plus goals. However, he does look poised to break the 20-goal mark for the first time in two years this season.
Whether Tarasenko’s diminished production is related exclusively to his shoulder or is part of some larger age-related decline is open to debate. It may be a little bit of both. An NHLer’s prime years are typically between 22 and 27 years of age. Their production often plateaus or is slightly down between 28 to 32 before sharply declining thereafter.
Norris turns 25 years old in May, which means he’s younger than Tarasenko was when he had his first surgery. It also means that this summer represents the last opportunity for the Senators to take advantage of a CBA provision that allows the organization to buy a player out at 1/3 the cost of his contract.
The Senators have used this provision in the past to buy players like Ray Emery and Colin White out.
CapFriendy’s calculator lists the cost of a Norris buyout this summer as being $12,966,664.
A buyout in 2025 would essentially double its cost.
I seriously doubt the organization would consider making that move this summer. Injuries notwithstanding, Norris is in the middle of his prime years and, if healthy, he can rebuild his value enough to the point where he can help the Senators or be moved to recoup some assets.
The risk is that if he cannot, his contract may become an anchor that this team could have difficulty getting rid of. And, at a time when the Senators should be good, being able to reallocate Norris’ money, if the concerns about his health and production are real, could be enticing.
Of course, any discussion about a potential buyout is likely moot before it gets started. Before a player can be eligible for a buyout, he must first be cleared physically and deemed healthy. If Norris is not healthy by the time the first buyout period ends on June 30th, the organization cannot buy him out.
An additional buyout window during the offseason is created for teams that have an arbitration case filed or settled. These teams have 48 hours beginning on the third day after the settlement of the team's final arbitration case or the team's last arbitration award. Erik Brannstrom and Parker Kelly are examples of impending restricted free agents who are arbitration-eligible - creating the possibility of a second buyout window being available to the Senators later in the offseason.
Whether that affords Norris enough time to get healthy and medically cleared remains to be seen, but it feels unlikely that he would be or that the Senators would consider a buyout.
His injury puts the team in a difficult position.
They cannot rely on him to be healthy.
The presence and performance of Shane Pinto and Ridly Greig this season alleviates some of the pressure to guard against another injury to Norris, but should an injury beset either of those players or Tim Stützle, their depth at the position will begin to look thin.
It also puts a ton of inherent pressure on these young players.
In an offseason when the Senators were already expected to look at adding a veteran defenceman and another winger to their mix, management may have no choice but to look at adding an experienced centre.
In what was already expected to be a busy and pivotal offseason to alleviate concerns and distance new ownership and management from its predecessors, Norris’ uncertain future was a wrinkle this organization did not need.
Other News and Notes:
With his hat trick yesterday, Brady Tkachuk has recorded his third consecutive season of 30-plus goals. In franchise history, only Daniel Alfredsson (four), Dany Heatley (four), Marian Hossa (four), Jason Spezza (four), and Alexei Yashin (five) have more 30-goal seasons than Tkachuk.
At the AHL trade deadline, the Senators acquired Jamieson Rees from the Carolina Hurricanes for a sixth-round pick in 2024. Incidentally, Rees has a previous connection to Ottawa. In 2019, the Senators dealt a second and third-round pick to the Hurricanes to move up and draft goaltender Mads Sogaard. Rees was the prospect Carolina drafted in the second round. After enjoying a productive 2022-23 season with the Chicago Wolves (14 goals, 42 points in 65 games), Rees has failed to score a goal in 38 games this season. He has yet to appear in an NHL game.
The Senators were not done. They added forward Wyatt Bongiovanni from Winnipeg for future considerations. The 24-year-old has contributed 15 points in 34 AHL games with the Manitoba Moose this season.
The Senators have reassigned Maxime Guenette to the AHL, which means that Travis Hamonic could be ready to return to the lineup.
Great read but sad to see Norris going through this. He seems like a sterling fellow and brought a lot of talent to the team. I hope he makes a complete recovery and has a long hockey career in front of him. It's starting feel like we fans are cursed by a cloud hanging over the team.
There has been talk about whether Norris might be better on long term on the wing vs at centre. Assuming he recovers, would his injury history point more to staying at centre (ie fewer board battles) or do you say he has hurt his shoulder 3 times at centre, how much worse could the wing be?