The Ottawa Senators have re-signed forward Claude Giroux to a one-year contract extension, a league source told The Athletic\u2019s Pierre LeBrun.<\/p>\n
According to the source, who spoke anonymously to disclose details that aren\u2019t yet public, the deal carries a $2 million cap hit with $3 million in potential performance bonuses, including $1.5 million if Giroux hits the 10-game mark and another $500,000 if he reaches 40 games.<\/p>\n
Giroux\u2019s contract also contains a full no-movement clause.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old will return for his fifth season with the Senators, having scored 85 goals and 242 points in 327 career games with the franchise. Giroux finished the 2025-26 regular season with a league-best 63.1 percent faceoff rate. His previous deal was a one-year contract extension that carried a base salary of $2 million and up to $2.75 million in performance bonuses.<\/p>\n
Giroux signed with Ottawa as a free agent in July 2022 after spending the bulk of his career with the Philadelphia Flyers, followed by a cameo with the Florida Panthers. The Hearst, Ont., native has 379 goals and 1,165 career points in 1,345 career games across his 19-year NHL career.<\/p>\n
NHL free agency: Early winners and losers<\/p>\n
Shayna Goldman and Madison Eades<\/p>\n
The forward tested the free-agent market once his contract extension expired. A handful of teams expressed interest, including the Flyers. Senators GM Steve Staios said they offered Giroux a contract as far back as March, around the NHL trade deadline, and that their free-agency plans were held up as they waited for the 38-year-old to make a decision. Flyers GM Daniel Bri\u00e8re publicly acknowledged discussions were held between him and Giroux, but couldn\u2019t say more. Giroux played 1,000 games for Philadelphia, which drafted him in 2006, and scored 291 goals and 900 career points for the franchise.<\/p>\n
But amid speculation that Giroux had chosen his destination last week, two league sources, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe ongoing deliberations, told The Athletic that nothing was finalized and he hadn\u2019t made up his mind. That changed Monday night, when reports surfaced that Giroux was nearing an agreement to return to Ottawa.<\/p>\n
The move now leaves the Senators with roughly $4.2 million in cap space, according to PuckPedia. Giroux was among a short list of pending free agents for the Senators, including forward Nick Cousins, who signed a two-year contract extension to remain in Ottawa with a $1,587,500 AAV. Goaltender Samuel Ersson recently signed a two-year contract annually worth $2.2 million after not being tendered a qualifying offer.<\/p>\n
Lars Eller, Nick Jensen and Dennis Gilbert have all left the Senators as free agents. Meanwhile, Arthur Kaliyev remains a free agent after he also wasn\u2019t tendered a qualifying offer.<\/p>\n
What Giroux\u2019s deal means for Ottawa<\/p>\n
Regardless of how it plays out, the Senators\u2019 offseason will be defined by Brady Tkachuk\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n
But if Giroux had left, and it seems there was a legitimate chance he could have, that would have been two significant cogs gone from the team\u2019s leadership core in the same offseason. Giroux was extremely helpful to players in teaching finer details of the game, such as winning faceoffs. And in the dressing room, he endeared himself to his teammates as the elder statesman. He would\u2019ve been missed.<\/p>\n
However, now that he\u2019s back, Giroux\u2019s fit in the lineup is a question mark. His experience with Tim St\u00fctzle justified his spot in the top six in previous years, but as his age and career stage, is he better suited as a bottom-six forward?<\/p>\n
In theory, Giroux could play on Shane Pinto\u2019s wing on the third line, but maybe those wing spots are best suited for Michael Amadio and Warren Foegele. Eller has joined the Panthers, meaning there\u2019s a vacancy in the fourth line\u2019s center spot. Is that an option for the league\u2019s best faceoff man? It should be worth considering. If nothing else, it\u2019s a strong skill that justifies keeping him in the lineup.<\/p>\n
Giroux\u2019s return could come at the expense of a youngster such as Stephen Halliday, who saw time on ice last season up until the trade deadline in the team\u2019s bottom six. And recent acquisitions of William Eklund and Andr\u00e9 Burakovsky are taking up room in the team\u2019s forward core, even more so with Giroux back in the fold. But the Senators will be boosted by Giroux\u2019s presence. It\u2019s on him to maintain a level of play as a secondary contributor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ottawa Senators have re-signed forward Claude Giroux to a one-year contract extension, a league source told The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[53,3154,182,5020,13397],"class_list":["post-98089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anthropic","tag-anthropic","tag-anthropic-claude","tag-claude","tag-nhl","tag-ottawa-senators"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}