The Ottawa Senators have their answer. The team re-signed Claude Giroux to a one-year contract on Tuesday, ending the waiting game that had frozen Ottawa’s offseason through the opening week of free agency. The deal carries a $2 million base salary with performance bonuses that can push its value to $5 million, per the team’s announcement and reports from NHL.com and CBC.
Giroux, 38, had reportedly weighed a reunion with Philadelphia, where he spent the first fifteen seasons of his career, before choosing to stay. “I chose to come back because I want to be here. I’m excited to be an Ottawa Senator,” he said in the club’s release. It will be his fifth season in Ottawa.
The production still justifies the term. Giroux put up 14 goals and 35 assists in all 82 games last season, and he won faceoffs at a 63.1 percent clip — the best mark in the NHL. That last number is the one that shapes how Ottawa uses him: he is the draw-taker they send out for defensive-zone starts and late-game situations, the right-shot center who lets the coaching staff shelter younger players in softer matchups.
For a team built around a young core that took a real step last season, a one-year commitment to a 38-year-old is close to the ideal structure. Ottawa keeps its most dependable veteran and its faceoff insurance without adding term that would clog the books when the next wave of raises arrives. The bonus-heavy design also softens the risk if age catches up midseason. Giroux gets one more year to chase a deep postseason run, and the Senators get to build the rest of their summer knowing the top-nine hole they were holding open is filled.
In fantasy terms, Giroux stays a targeted-league asset rather than a standard-league lock. His draw volume makes him valuable in formats that count faceoff wins, and steady power-play deployment keeps his assist and power-play-point totals relevant. In dynasty and keeper leagues, a one-year deal at 38 means his value is purely present-tense — draft him for this season’s counting stats, not for anything beyond it.
