{"id":492084,"date":"2026-06-26T11:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T15:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=492084"},"modified":"2026-06-26T12:22:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:22:34","slug":"jordan-spence-contract-sens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2026\/06\/26\/jordan-spence-contract-sens\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Why the Jordan Spence Contract Makes Sense for Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the news today, as we are heading into the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2026\/06\/01\/nhl-rumours-sens-trade\/\" target=\"_self\">NHL&#8217;s free agent period and on the day of the 2026 NHL Entry Draft<\/a> we have a report of a new <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/spencjo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-06-17_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jordan Spence<\/a> contract to discuss. The deal is being reported as four years, for about $20 million, so that would work out to about an annual average cap hit of $5M for the previously pending restricted free agent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOBG3leOnle\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 4634px; aspect-ratio: 4634\/3089;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<p><span>Credit Image: \u00a9 Daniel Lea\/Cal Sport Media<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Restricted Free Agent Jordan Spence Contract Signed, Sealed, and Delivered<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Hearing approximately $20M for Spence <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kI7O1j31MT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/kI7O1j31MT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FriedgeHNIC\/status\/2070524048598044905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 26, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/11\/10\/discussing-progress-ottawa-senators-defenceman-jordan-spence\/\" target=\"_self\">Ottawa Senators<\/a> had acquired Jordan Spence last summer from the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for a pair of draft picks. He had been brought in to add some depth to the Sens backend, in particular on the right side. One of the Sens vets, <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/j\/jenseni02.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-06-17_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nick Jensen<\/a>, was still recovering from a hip injury at the time, so it was unclear where Spence would be ultimately needed.<\/p>\n<p>To start the campaign, Spence was actually healthy-scratched. However, as the season went along, he worked his way into the lineup. Of course, it wasn&#8217;t without its hiccups. As despite some great analytics, he was prone to a few costly errors, especially early on in the season. But between injuries, and his continued solid play, Spence&#8217;s role with the team continued to grow and grow as the season went along. That is why some were making the argument that it might be a good time to sell high on Spence. With <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/y\/yakemca01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-06-17_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carter Yakemchuk<\/a> on his way to the NHL, possibly as early as the start of 2026-27, and with <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/matinni01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-06-17_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikolas Matinpalo<\/a> and <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/z\/zubar01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-06-17_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Artem Zub<\/a> already there on the right-side, it wasn&#8217;t clear where he would fit in in Ottawa.<\/p>\n<p>As we announced the new Jordan Spence contract, let&#8217;s review his statistics from 2025-26. In 73 games for the Sens, he ended up with seven goals and 24 assists for 31 points. His point production was aided by a secondary role, filling in on the power play from time to time. His total average ice time on the season was 18:44. However, if you check his game logs, from about mid-March timeframe, he was often over 20 minutes, and sometimes well over that amount. Analytically, if you go by <a  href=\"https:\/\/moneypuck.com\/lines.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">expected goal percentage<\/a>, he was on all three of the Sens top pairings in the regular season, at over 60% on each of them. Anyway you slice and dice it, he was a very strong player for the Sens in 2025-26.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Jordan Spence, re-signed 4x$5M by OTT, is a two-way defenceman who plays a smart, simple, and responsible  game to tilt the ice and avoid putting himself in situations where he&#39;s vulnerable due to his lack of size. Saw elevated minutes down the stretch and thrived in them. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8nrfiKLUhX\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/8nrfiKLUhX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; JFresh (@JFreshHockey) <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JFreshHockey\/status\/2070526093224796621?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 26, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Marc DesRosiers-IMAGN Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the news today, as we are heading into the NHL&#8217;s free agent period and on the day of the 2026 NHL Entry Draft we have a report of a new Jordan Spence contract to discuss. The deal is being reported as four years, for about $20 million, so that would work out to about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4222,"featured_media":475016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4547,34,4548],"tags":[4091,662],"class_list":["post-492084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senators","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-jordan-spence","tag-nhl-free-agency"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492084"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":492646,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492084\/revisions\/492646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}