Ottawa Senators general manager Pierre Dorion said Tuesday he does not expect to engage in contract discussions with any of team's pending restricted or unrestricted free agents while the NHL season remains paused.

The Senators currently have seven pending restricted free agents and eight players scheduled for unrestricted free agency (including Clarke MacArthur and Ryan Callahan, who have spent the season on long-term injured reserve).

"We were going to start overall discussions with some RFAs [restricted free agents] when the season came to a pause, and we're probably going to wait to see what happens if we resume the season or if we don't, so we don't expect to do anything [until the off-season] when it comes to the RFAs," Dorion said, per NHL.com. "With the UFAs [unrestricted free agents], it's much the same thing; we started some discussions with some of them, and those discussions are on pause. At some time, agents have to call me back if they want their players to sign in Ottawa, and we'll see when I hear back from them."

Anthony Duclair leads the team's crop of restricted free agents with 23 goals this season and has 40 points in 66 games. Connor Brown leads the group in points with 43 (16 goals) in 71 games. Six of the pending RFAs - Brown, Duclair, Andreas Englund, Jayce Hawryluk, Nick Paul and Chris Tierney - are arbitration-eligible, while Rudolfs Balcers is not. 

Mikkel Boedker, Matthew Peca and Scott Sabourin are scheduled to hit the open market this summer, along with veteran Ron Hainsey and long-time Senators Mark Borowiecki and Craig Anderson. Dorion noted the team will once again look for veteran help in free agency this year, whether it's from within or on the open market.

"We'll always need some quality veteran UFAs and we hope to keep some on board. But if we move on from them, we know that some others will be available," Dorion said. "We brought in some great people last year [Hainsey, forward Tyler Ennis] that were beneficial to the growth of this group and we'll be able to do the same, whether it's keeping them internally or looking externally."

According to CapFriendly, the Senators currently have just $41.9 million committed to next year's salary cap, tied up in nine players.