2025 Ottawa Senators Report Cards: Claude Giroux

Staff Grade: B, Reader Grade: B+

Have you called your father lately? No? That's fine. I think he has a tee time this morning anyway. Just send him a text later. Dads, as much as we love to grill them (pun intended) have an important role as it turns out. As a dad I struggle every day to figure exactly what that role is but I know I have one. And Claude Giroux also has a very important role as team dad of your Ottawa Senators. I think that role changes a little bit every season and accordingly our expectations shift, as our grades will always reflect. So how did we render our grades this season?

In terms of father time, he remains undefeated, and Giroux can attest to that based on his trajectory as an Ottawa Senator. This past season, Giroux had his first sub-20-goal campaign (when healthy) since 2016-17 and by total points, Giroux hasn't put up such modest numbers in fifteen years. Pragmatically, Giroux hasn't played so few minutes per game since his rookie days (I think head coach Travis Green did a good job managing Giroux's workload with an eye on the postseason) and to his credit Giroux continues getting better at the faceoff dot every year.

Let's start with the postseason because I think most of us dreamt of the day that we would see Giroux play postseason for the Senators and it was cool as hell watching that prophecy become reality. By all means, Giroux delivered in Ottawa's six-game series in round one racking up five points and taking zero(!) penalties. Only Shane Pinto won more faceoffs for Ottawa in the postseason (and to give credit where it's due, Toronto has annoyingly good centres). Among Ottawa's forwards, Giroux ranked fifth in five-on-five xGF% at 54.78 and I would argue no forward on the team moved the needle on the powerplay to the same extent as Giroux. Team Dad also paced Ottawa's forwards on the penalty kill in the playoffs so in summary, Giroux did a bit of everything and he did it well. I don't know what more you can ask for. Ottawa certainly didn't lose that series for lack of hot dad energy. Stats always courtesy of https://www.naturalstattrick.com/

In the regular season, we know Ottawa had some well-documented struggles converting chances into goals and Giroux bore the brunt of that as much as anyone (hence the low counting stats relative to career numbers (partly probably because also time)). With that in mind, Giroux performed well relative to his peers (even if not by his lofty career standards). He ranked third among Ottawa's forwards in the regular season with 35 assists, fourth in points (50) and shots (138). Among Ottawa's top-six forwards, Giroux had the fewest penalty minutes (18) and he drew 13 penalties along the way. And in the dot, Giroux's 600 faceoff wins and 61.5% success rate led the team, naturally.

In terms of on-ice results, Giroux's 48.55 xGF% at five-on-five holds up with his teammates in the regular season but still leaves something to be desired given the team's improved defensive structure and because I expect Giroux to lead this forward crops defensively. As I alluded to in the introduction, shooting luck regression burned Giroux like it did to a lot of Ottawa's players this season and on the powerplay in particular, Giroux felt the sting in the regular season with an on-ice shooting rate of 15.75 (so I try to keep all these things in mind before getting too hasty about lower counting stats overall). To his credit, Ottawa's busiest penalty killer (among forwards anyway) had a respectable xGA/60 of 8.87 comparable to Pinto and Ridly Greig so I don't see any great lack of value from Giroux as much as an unlucky season coupled with a new system and some major tweaks to the configuration of Ottawa's forward lines and special teams configurations.

Now unlike a lot of people, I don't particularly enjoy the contract speculation game so I'll defer on that task and leave it up to someone who wants to tackle it. Giroux will enter unrestricted free agency this summer at the ripe age of 37 coming off a contract with an AAV of 6.5M$ and a full no movement clause. No one really has an exact formula for how to compensate for professional athletes based on vibes and likability so I have no idea what fair market value looks like for Giroux. On a cost-per-point basis, I imagine Ottawa over-spends a little bit to keep such an important personality in the room. I also think Giroux could just as easily bounce back next year with a bit of shooting luck. With the aging curve duly noted, Giroux does strike me as a very well-conditioned athlete and he also happens to have a bazillion hockey IQ.

I love Claude Giroux and I hope he stays in Ottawa obviously. We're the same age. We're both dads. It makes me smile when I'm out doing dad things and I see Claude with his kids doing dad stuff in the summer too. He's just a regular guy like us! I would wager that Giroux's teammates and coaches have a lot of great things to say about him. And underneath all of that, opponents low-key can't stand him—that's what you want to see! If Giroux doesn't come back in the fall then you know some serious Alfie-in-2013-type-shit has gone down behind the scenes but I really don't anticipate anything like that with this ownership and management group. The Senators made good on their promise of post-season hockey in Ottawa. It feels like the start of something good and I can see Giroux as a key contributor.