Fantasy Hockey Feature: Is Jake Sanderson ready to take the next step?

For most 21-year-old defencemen, a 38-point season is a very good effort. For the Ottawa Senators’ Jake Sanderson, it felt like a bit of a letdown considering he earned 52.3% of the team’s power play time, finished in the 83rd percentile of blue liners in ice time per game, and was coming off a 32-point season as a rookie. 

Let’s look at his 2023-24 season, what went wrong, and what his future holds in the fantasy realm. 

Sanderson finished 18th in the league by total power-play time as a blue liner but landed 28th by power-play points from the position. Among the 30 rearguards that skated at least 175 minutes with the man advantage, Sanderson finished 26th by points per minute. 

The 2023-24 Senators overhauled their approach on the power play compared to Sanderson’s rookie year with the purp