"I said going in it was unlikely we would do much of anything and we accomplished exactly that," general manager Bryan Murray said.
The Senators entered Monday four points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the Eastern Conference.
Prince, 23, was Ottawa's second round pick (No. 61) in the 2011 NHL Draft.
"It's an opportunity for a young man. He wasn't playing much here. He deserved to play," Murray said. "He was a good guy. Worked hard in practice, did all the things. But we felt there were a couple of people in line that could take that job and the coaching staff appeared to like more. We felt to be fair to us and to be fair to Shane, it was the right thing to do."
The Senators called up forward Matt Puempel from Binghamton of the American Hockey League for their game against the St. Louis Blues at Canadian Tire Centre on Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET; RDS, TSN5, FS-MW, NHL.TV).
Murray said he explored the market for a center following the decision Monday to rest top center Kyle Turris, who has been trying to play through a high ankle sprain.
Turris first sustained the injury Dec. 5, and then re-aggravated it Jan. 18, causing him to miss six games.
"It's been frustrating," said Turris, who hasn't had a point in 15 games and is without a goal in 26 games. "I've been just trying to help out in any way I can. We just kind of came to the determination that it's just hard to get around the ice now. We made the decision to get better.
Murray said forward Brandon Pirri was on the Senators' list and he had a conversation with Florida Panthers general manager Dale Tallon about Pirri.
When Murray circled back to discuss Pirri again, the Panthers already had traded him the Anaheim Ducks for a sixth-round pick in the 2016 draft.
Murray said at the end of the day, players like Curtis Lazar, Nick Paul and Zack Smith, who have seen time on the wing, have the ability to play center.
"When I looked around at the people we were discussing, it just appeared to me that one of those three, or two of the three at least, could play the middle and be adequate," Murray said. "In comparison to the acquisition we could have made, we thought our guys were better so we just stuck with our own.
"We're not replacing Kyle Turris. We know that. He's a big-time player for us and we're going to miss him."
Murray said he also had conversations with Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman on Monday about forward Jonathan Drouin, who has asked to be traded and is suspended by the team.
"[Yzerman] kind of knew what he wanted to accomplish with the player. And if it didn't happen he was going to wait until the summer to decide what to do," Murray said. "I don't know what will happen now. It's his player. What he has to do, he has to do. He felt that if he didn't get a player that could really help them in the [Stanley Cup] Playoffs this year and more, he was just going to stand pat."
