Ottawa Senators hold no rebounds, retain No. 7 pick in NHL draft

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Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the Ottawa Senators didn’t get the rebounds.

The National Hockey League draft lottery was held in Secaucus, New Jersey, and the Senators retained the No. 7 overall pick Tuesday night, while the San Jose Sharks won the No. 1 overall pick with the better odds and the Chicago Blackhawks will select the No. 2 pick. .

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The Senators have 24 hours to determine if they will lose the No. 7 pick in the draft as punishment they received from the league for the failed deal with the Vegas Golden Knights for winger Evgenii Dadonov.

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The Senators were stripped of their first-round pick in an upcoming draft as a result of former general manager Pierre Dorion giving the Knights incorrect information about the existence of Dadonov’s 10-team no-movement clause when he was traded to Las Vegas in July 2021.

“Ottawa will forfeit its first-round pick in one of the 2024, 2025 or 2026 drafts. Ottawa will make the determination on which selection will be forfeited within 24 hours of the conclusion of that year’s draft,” the league said in a released on November 1.

The expectation is that the Senators will keep this pick because hope is in the future, either the club will make the playoffs and the pick won’t mean as much or perhaps NHL commissioner Gary Bettman will reduce the penalty that was announced shortly after. from owner Micheal. Andlauer bought the club.

General manager Steve Staios and Dave Poulin, the club’s senior vice president of hockey operations, have spent a lot of time scouting top prospects in preparation for this draft.

Although interim chief scout Don Boyd will run the draft board and make the final selections, Staios and Poulin want to get an idea of ​​who the club is looking at. The club will begin its amateur scouting meetings on May 14 at the Canadian Tire Center to establish a plan for the approach it wants to take at the draft table.

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Staios, Boyd and chief European scout Mikko Ruutu, along with longtime scouts George Fargher and Bob Janecyk, were on hand at the 2024 IIHF under-18 world championship that concluded Sunday in Finland.

Staios, who will speak to reporters Wednesday when the club introduces head coach Travis Green at a news conference at the stadium, said last month that the club will not target any particular area with its first-round pick.

“We looked for specific things to begin our evaluation. We value character and hockey sense. We have an incredible group of amateur scouts who have really stepped up. I really want to make it to the final lists; We have our meetings here in a couple of weeks,” Staios said.

“As far as philosophy goes, there may be a time in the draft where you look positional. But certainly at the top of the board, we’re looking for the best player (available).”

The Senators also have a second first-round pick acquired from the Detroit Red Wings in the Alex DeBrincat trade last summer. But that pick will be a late pick that originally belonged to the Boston Bruins and was acquired by the Wings.

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Staios does not have the option of surrendering that pick as revenge for the league’s sanction because the punishment stipulated that it must be a pick in the hands of the Senators.

It’s the first time since 2010 that no one advanced in the lottery and the results were the same as the odds of the drawing that was held under the watchful eye of NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly at the NHL Network studios located in the outside of New York City. .

The lottery determined the selection order of the first 16 picks in the draft to be held June 28-29 at The Sphere in Las Vegas.

Two lotteries are held to decide the two best draft picks.

The Senators were hoping to get a chance with 17-year-old Macklin Celebrini, a Vancouver-born center who scored 32 goals and 64 points in just 38 games at Boston University. Rated the draft’s top prospect, he was named the 2024 Hobey Baker Award winner as the NCCA’s top hockey player last season.

He was No. 1 on the top 15 list for this year’s draft released by TSN’s Bob McKenzie on Monday afternoon.

Center Cayden Lindstrom of the Medicine Hat Tigers (WHL) was ranked No. 5 overall on McKenzie’s list, defenseman Sam Dickinson of the London Knights was ranked No. 6, and blueliner Zayne Parekh of the Saginaw Spirit was ranked No. 7.

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The club entered the lottery with the seventh-best odds after missing the playoffs for the seventh straight year with a 37-41-4 record and 78 points last season. This is not a big surprise because senators had only a 6.5 percent chance of being elected first and only a 6.7 percent chance of second place.

The Senators have never won the lottery since its inception in 1995 and unfortunately that was the case again this year.

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