Jack on Jake: Senators D-coach Jack Capuano on the wonders of Jake Sanderson

No one has worked more closely with rookie defenceman Jake Sanderson than the Senators' defensive coach Jack Capuano. 

We had a lengthy one on one with Capuano, the long-time NHL coach, talking about Sanderson’s remarkable acclimation to the NHL and why he deserves to be in the conversation for the Calder Trophy. 

Here, then, is Jack dishing on Jake. 

“I’ll tell you this,” Capuano says, instantly warming to the topic. 

“In my time with the New York Islanders (2005-17), we had all these young defencemen – Calvin da Haan, Travis Hamonic (Sanderson’s frequent partner this season), Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock, Devon Toews, all of them. 

“In Florida, we had (Aaron) Ekblad and (MacKenzie) Weegar. Then, I come here and we’ve got really good young defence – and Jake is as good as any of them. And he will be as good as any of them.”

Senators fans who have watched Sanderson this season can pick up what Capuano is putting down. He has not only stepped into regular duty as a 20-year-old rookie out of college, but he has also become the Senators' best defenceman. 

There was a scene from Thursday’s wild 5-4 win over Philadelphia where Sanderson is confronted by two Flyers forechecking, deceives them with a move, spins away, spins again and heads up ice to create a scoring chance. It's vintage Sanderson, whose hockey IQ is at an Einstein level. 

Partly owing to an in-game injury to Hamonic, Sanderson played 27 minutes, 49 seconds versus the Flyers, the most of any player on either team, had four shots, three shot blocks and was plus-1. Ho hum for the kid from Whitefish, MT.  

In recent weeks Sanderson has often played the most minutes of any Senator and was elevated to first power play unit, ahead of Thomas Chabot. Now, with Chabot nursing a wrist injury that could keep him out for the rest of the regular season, Sanderson will have his responsibilities raised again, while the Senators try to hang around in the Eastern Conference playoff race. 

Those of us who watch Sanderson from up high in the press box, where the game seems easy and mistakes are glaring, have not seen a rookie defenceman make the right decision more consistently than Sanderson. He moves the puck, skates to open areas and hits breaking forwards with stretch passes. In short, he defends better than any Ottawa rookie before him. AND, Sanderson plays in all situations – shorthanded, power play and top pair, five on five. 

Erik Karlsson was certainly more flashy. But even the two-time Norris Trophy winner initially needed time to work on his defensive game, including a stint in AHL Binghamton. Sanderson has not missed a beat and has not been flagged in 70 NHL games. 

In Capuano’s view, Sanderson is unique. Mature. And it doesn’t hurt that his father, Geoff, was himself an outstanding skater and NHL forward. 

“For a young player, he handles himself like a nine-year vet,” Capuano says. “He goes about his business. He’s got high character. He comes from a hockey family. He is dialled in.”

Given the details in Sanderson’s game, it is perhaps not surprising that the Senators' staff are blown away by his focus. Not just on the ice. 

“When you get a player that young who has to watch power play meetings, penalty kill meetings, five-on-five meetings – and to be able to do what he does. Plus he is playing against the other team’s top line.”

Calder Trophy voters tend to favour point producers. Of the past 20 winners, 13 were forwards, with five defencemen honoured and two goaltenders. 

Centre Matty Beniers of the Seattle Kraken leads all rookies with 50 points and is having a terrific season. Matias Maccelli (Arizona) and Mason McTavish (Anaheim) also deserve consideration. 

Where is the consideration that defencemen have far more responsibility than forwards, especially wingers? I have long felt that defencemen tend to get the shaft unless they have crazy point totals. 

Even when talk turns to defencemen, Owen Power is often mentioned ahead of Sanderson. Is it the 6-6 frame, or the fact that the Buffalo Sabres, near the major market of Toronto, have a higher profile than the Senators? 

With 29 points, Sanderson is tied with Power. They both kill penalties and work the power play. 

Tellingly, Sanderson has 130 shot blocks to Power’s 81. Sanderson is tops among all rookies in that category. 

Power gets more than 23 minutes per game to Sanderson’s 21-plus, but Sanderson’s TOI continues to grow. And he is now a top pair D-man while Power is on Buffalo’s second pairing. 

Both are extremely promising young defencemen. Power, a first-overall draft pick by the Sabres in 2021, is about 35 pounds heavier than the 6-2, 185-pound Sanderson.  Power has a presence, and overall game. But still ...

You need to watch Sanderson, Ottawa’s 5th overall pick in 2020, every day to appreciate his more subtle gifts. The stick in the lanes. The silky smooth skating that makes his gap control seem a cinch. The way he consistently breaks up the two-on-one pass over. The decision-making. 

Wade Redden has a viewpoint on Sanderson as a development coach with the Senators. The former defenceman was a high draft pick (second overall, 1995) who came to the Sens as a rookie, following a trade with the Islanders. 

Like Sanderson, Redden was so smooth he was sometimes taken for granted. Redden doesn’t mind admitting that Sanderson is far better prepared to step into the NHL than rookies were nearly 30 years ago. 

“Jake’s overall game defending, and the maturity at his age is pretty remarkable,” Redden says, over the phone. “I mean, he doesn’t get beat too often. You see some of the top guys that come down on him and how he can kind of close the gap and separate the guy – and he has the speed and strength to do all that. He’s a special player. 

“He maybe doesn’t get the limelight that I think he should.”

After 70 games (he missed some time due to an injury), Sanderson is already approaching Redden’s first-year output of 30 points in 82 games played in 1996-97, the first year Ottawa reached the playoffs. 

The kid’s offensive numbers will grow. As Capuano says, Sanderson knows when to jump up on the play, and how to get shots through. That shot will get heavier as he gets older and stronger. 

What leaves veteran hockey people slack-jawed is Sanderson’s defensive acumen. How does a kid out of the University of North Dakota, with the puck on his stick much of the game, learn to defend so effortlessly? Well, when Sanderson was a student, he was an A+ student of the game. Especially the defensive side. 

When Sanderson was still at UND, head coach Brad Berry would marvel at his talented rink rat. Sanderson was endlessly vying to get better, and leading his team by example. First player on the ice. Last off it. Toiling over the tiniest details of the game. 

“When your best player, Jake Sanderson, is working on the extra things after practice, everybody watches and says, ‘man, I’ve got to do that,’” Berry told me.  

“It raises the bar.”

It was his overall game that got him drafted in the top five, despite not being all that big for a defenceman, nor as flashy as Cale Makar. To Capuano, Sanderson’s stick detail is “off the charts.” He positions himself and angles off skaters like an elite, veteran defender. He can box out because he's stronger than he looks, and his balance is perfect. 

“You don’t see guys like this come around very often,” Capuano says. “It’s just the little intangibles of the game. He knows who he’s out against. He knows clock management. And when you look at all those little things, which I like to call big things, that’s when you know you’ve got a special player.”

As Capuano notes, they didn’t make the rule changes several years ago to make it easier for the D-men, it was for the forwards. And so without having your stick horizontal, or draping an arm around a forward, the angling and positioning of a defenceman are paramount. 

Off the ice, Sanderson is strict with his diet and works out like an established pro. When I used Scott Niedermayer, the smooth-skating defenceman of the New Jersey Devils and Anaheim Ducks as a comparable, Capuano nods, agreeing that it was a good one. 

“He wants to be the best,” the Senators D coach says of Sanderson. “He’s going to be an elite player, a great player in this league for a long time. Not only because of the way he plays, but the way he handles himself. He is one of the most humble kids, he wants to listen when you have meetings with him. He takes it all in. He’s like a sponge.”

Sanderson doesn’t just deserve consideration for the Calder. Having emerged as the top defencemen on a team brimming with young talent, he should be a favourite to win it.