The Senators are armed with the highest overall pick they have had in possession since the famed 2020 NHL Draft which brought Tim Stützle and Jake Sanderson into their coffers.
To say this is an important draft for the organization would be an understatement. The Senators have depth throughout the system, but the quality of its prospects took a natural hit with the graduation of its best prospects to the parent roster. Tyler Boucher’s unfortunate inability to stay healthy and two separate trades that moved a top-12 pick in the last two years’ drafts have compounded this problem.
It is an unapologetically difficult position for the organization considering it has been seven years since they last reached the postseason. With the volume of draft capital this team accrued during this time, the farm system should be in better shape than it is.
The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler rated the Senators as having the 31st-ranked prospect pool in the entire league. It is a spot usually earmarked for Stanley Cup contenders or pretenders who have bankrupted their system chasing the dream.
The 2024 NHL Draft allows the organization to inject much-needed talent into their mix. Management’s decision to defer the punishment for the organization’s involvement in the Evgenii Dadonov NTC scandal to 2025 or 2026 means the team will pick seventh. They also possess Boston’s 2024 first-round selection and their own second-round pick. That gives the Senators three picks in the top 40 to reshape their farm significantly.
Barring some unforeseen scenario that sees the Senators trade up or down from the seventh overall spot, they should hold tight at that spot.
What direction they go in from there remains a mystery.
The widely held belief is that the Senators will pursue a defenceman in a defenceman-rich first round.
Projected to go among the top-10 picks are Artyom Levshunov (RHD, Michigan State), Anton Silayev (LHD, Torpedo KHL), Sam Dickinson (LHD, London), Zayne Parekh (RHD, Saginaw), and potentially Carter Yakemchuk (RHD, Calgary).
The idea that the Senators need to add a blue liner is rooted in the team’s defensive depth or lack thereof. The right side, in particular, is weaker than Matt Murray’s glove hand.
The rationale behind taking a defenceman is reasonable. The left side of the Senators’ blue line looks set, even with rumours circulating that Jakob Chychrun’s time with the organization is drawing to a close. Jake Sanderson is poised to become one of the better two-way defencemen in the league, while Thomas Chabot has four seasons left on his contract. Erik Brannstrom has exhibited the ability to play on both sides, but together with Tyler Kleven, they afford the Senators some young depth.
The depth and quality is not shared on the right side. Artem Zub is a solid defensive defenceman, but he has missed a half-season worth of games over the last two seasons due to various injuries. Beyond him, there is not a lot to get excited about. Brannstrom can play the off-side and has posted some decent underlying numbers over the years, but as an undersized defenceman, it would not be a surprise to see the organization pivot in a different direction. Jacob Bernard-Docker played in 72 games this season in his first season as a regular. His results were replacement level and despite his infancy in the NHL, he turns 24 years old next month. Perhaps there is another level of play that he can unlock, but there is a good chance that this version of the player is a true representation of what he is. Enough words have been spent describing Travis Hamonic’s lack of utility, but he’s signed through next season. The Senators’ 2019 first-round pick, Lassi Thomson, just signed with Malmö in the SHL. Max Guenette might be a decent depth option, but he will never be a top-four option on a contender.
Both Parekh and Yakemchuk should be available when the Senators pick at seven. In Scott Wheeler’s mock for The Athletic, he had Parekh going to the Senators.
The wrinkle for the Senators is that a defenceman will likely take two years before he appears in a game for the organization. Jake Sanderson, the 2020 NHL Draft’s fifth overall pick for example, started playing for Senators at the start of the 2022-23 season.
A lot can change during that time. The Senators’ shortcomings now might not accurately be true a year, two or three out. Earlier this season, the Senators were linked to Chris Tanev. He will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. Regardless of whether he finds himself in Ottawa, any acquisitions will impact the position’s short and medium-term needs.
Evaluating the state of the Senators’ roster, serious considerations must also be made for the top-six’s future. Claude Giroux is in the last year of his deal and is 36 years old. Josh Norris has endured three shoulder surgeries and there are no guarantees when (or if) he will approach the production levels he demonstrated pre-injury. Tons of digital ink has spilled lately pondering what another lost season could mean for Brady Tkachuk’s future. If he decides that he has endured enough losing and would prefer to be moved to an American city, his availability (and prospective trade return) would have massive ramifications on what the Senators need to do with their roster.
A reality may exist where it is beneficial to consider drafting a skilled forward in that spot.
Macklin Celebrini, the consensus first-overall pick, will be off the board, but some combination of Cayden Lindstrom, Beckett Sennecke, Berkly Catton, and Tij Iginla will be available.
Without many viewing opportunities of these players and the defencemen who may be available with Ottawa’s pick, I contacted HockeyProspecting’s Byron Bader.
His website has a statistical modelling tool that:
“standardizes player scoring across the board and uses historical performances to chart how prospects will perform in the NHL. (His) model removes intangible biases such as age, size, league, position and nationality. We do this by putting all players on the same playing field, based on their offensive production. Too often a player’s size, age or background is held against them. Not here.”
I asked Byron several questions to help shed insight on the 2024 NHL Draft, the Senators’ situation and what the organization should do.
How would you characterize this year's draft versus previous iterations?
“This draft I would characterize as really top-heavy but not all that deep. As my model projections go, there are a number of really high-calibre prospects that could turn into stars in the NHL. More than most drafts. Normally you start to run out of the really high calibre ones by pick 10 or so, here the good quality model picks are lasting all the way to the 20's. But once you get through those 20-30 players, the draft is much less deep in terms of guys that will get drafted later with above-average production (that sometimes develop in the following 2-3 years into significant assets for organizations). Also, most every year there's a decent crop of overagers that haven't been drafted yet. This year the overager crop is not very substantial at all.”
The Senators possess their own first-round draft selection for the first time since the 2021 Draft. With your knowledge of the Senators' system and the recent graduation of their top picks, what should the team prioritize with the seventh overall selection?
“The Senators’ system now that the big guns from the 2020 draft (Stutzle, Sanderson and Greig) can't really be considered prospects anymore is in a bad way. There's not much notable at all in it. So the priorities are essentially everything. Probably center and defense if you had to choose one or two as those are always the most important positions to fill through a draft.”
It looks like a defenceman-rich draft at the top of the class off early mocks, is there a defenceman (or player) the Senators should be wary about selecting and why?
“There are a lot of defencemen at the top end of this draft that scream future 1-2D that could QB a PP1 as well. I'm not sure there are any at the top end that I would be leery of. Silayev, I suppose, is one I'd be a bit leery of being taken too early. He's enormous and has tremendous mobility for someone his size, can close gaps very quickly. Lots of enticing qualities. But, he also doesn't have a ton of offence and point production to him and is heralded as a defensive d-man. These real big guys that are taken really high, that aren't also 90th percentile producers in their draft, you don't often get great value on them, when you look back a decade later. So, passing on a smaller offensive defenceman who could be a 50-point-per-season player (and there are a number of them in this draft) for a bigger defenceman with very likely less offensive upside could turn out to be a mistake down the road. Silayev in the 15 to 20 range though has more appeal to me.”
If the Senators target a d-man, who is the ideal guy the Senators should target at seven? Are there big separators between the defencemen who will be available in that range?
“Assuming Levshunov is going to be gone, if the Senators are targeting a defenceman I would focus my attention on Zayne Parekh, Zeev Buium, Sam Dickinson or Carter Yakemchuk (Cole Hutson too but there's no way he's going to be taken that early). They profile very well in the model, which is indicative of a future star offensive defenceman. Parekh and Buium specifically put up record-breaking, outlier-type, numbers in their respective leagues this year.”
Based on the modelling, a few fast risers (Tij Iginla, Beckett Sennecke) don't necessarily have flattering profiles now. Do you buy into the hype? Do you foresee a situation where these players can go higher than some mocks predict?
“Yes, I could see both of these players going higher than anticipated. There are always a few players that go much higher than expected. Iginla I'm buying into that hype big time. Son of a Hall of Famer (and seems to have a similar competitiveness and big game quality as his dad). Tij's production increased by a good 500% from his pre-draft year to his draft year and (this is the big kicker) Tij is exceptionally young. He's one of the youngest forwards, born in August. There's so much runway there to improve. I imagine he'll go back to Kelowna in the fall for one more season and should explode and jump up another level or two, production-wise, and all of a sudden you're sitting on a goldmine in a year or two. Sennecke specifically is a bit of a different story. He had a massive growth spurt throughout the year which is good. But, he's born in January (i.e., has been one of the oldest players amongst his peer group since he Timbits). He had a nice pre-draft year (production-wise), indicative of a mid-first rounder. But, his production didn't grow that much in his draft year (typically you want to see older players especially growing by 30-40%... Sennecke's only grew by about 18%). I'd be a bit more leery of taking him too early as these archetypes don't often turn into stars. This draft looks like it could have a lot of stars... not getting one, especially with an early pick, while others around you cash in would be a tough pill to swallow.”
The Senators have three picks in the top 40. If you're Steve Staios, what is your strategy for the draft with these early picks? Would you target a defenceman early and worry about finding forwards with your next two picks?
“Given the Senators prospect pool is so weak and the fact that they have a good base in the NHL at forward and defence (although as you mentioned there are some injury and age concerns more at forward), I would target the cliche best player available at all three picks. The Senators aren't sitting on a loaded system that needs one specific blue chip prospect at a single position. They need good to great prospects at every single position. Teams are going to pass on some really good quality players because they don't fit an organizational need or they have some perceived defect about them (usually height). If the Senators can turn the tide from their last several drafts, and take some of those quality players that fall to them it could do wonders for their pool. Off the top of my head, if they were able to walk out of the draft with something like Zayne Parekh, Cole Hutson and Yegor Surin... that would be a slam dunk.”
How would you describe the back end of the first round and early portion of the second round? Are there many intriguing prospects you can identify as being good players/fits for the Senators?
“I would call the back half of the first round and early second round intriguing. I'm just building my top 32 right now and, as it always goes, there are guys that my model really likes who will certainly fall into the 20s and beyond (Terik Parascak, Cole Hutson, Michael Hage, Egor Surin, Henry Mews) to name a few. I think some very good players are going to be available between picks 20 and 50.”
It is encouraging news to hear that “very good players are going to be available” when Ottawa has its second and third selections. Another encouraging sign is that the Senators’ director of hockey analytics, Sean Tierney, sat in and participated in the organization’s amateur scouting meetings.
Last offseason I detailed how Dorion’s reputation as an amateur scouting savant was overstated, but the organization has shied away from rolling the dice on drafting the most skilled players available. There has been an inclination to draft the player the organization believed would help them win — preferring a blend of character and a safe floor.
The games played statistic is often used as a barometer of how successful an organization is at drafting. While it is a metric that tells you which organizations have done a decent job of picking players who have appeared in games, the metric provides no context for how impactful these players have been when they have played.
I examined his draft record as part of a piece I wrote last offseason that detailed the Pierre Dorion era. Of the 48 players the Senators drafted between beginning with the 2017 NHL Draft and concluding with the 2022 NHL Draft, 20 of those selections had appeared in NHL games. In other words, 41.67 percent of their picks played games. The only organization to yield a higher percentage was the Columbus Blue Jackets (50.0, 21 of 42 picks).
When I looked at the value created by the draft selections using Evolving-Hockey’s ‘wins above replacement’ (WAR) metric, the Senators’ selections produced 86.2 worth of value — the league’s 15th-highest mark. The wrinkle is 74.7 percent of this WAR value was generated exclusively by the team’s top-five selections during this span. With 25.29 percent of the team’s WAR being created by picks made outside of a top-five selection, only Colorado, Columbus and Seattle (an expansion team) generated less value with picks made outside of a top-five selection. In other words, the Senators have struggled relative to their peers to find value outside of high first-round picks. (For what it’s worth, analytical organizations like Carolina and Dallas have thrived finding value later in the draft. They led the league in WAR outside of a top-five pick during this same timespan.)
With Dorion out of the picture, it will be interesting to see if there is a shift in the organization's philosophy. Having Tierney be heavily involved is an important first step, but it will be interesting to see whether the kind of players the organization traditionally targets broadens.
Looking at Bader’s modelling, the defencemen in Ottawa’s range are intriguing.
Most mock draft rankings project Levshunov to be the first defenceman taken, but Zayne Parekh and Zev Buium look intriguing based on the scouting and statistical profiles.
The issue of handedness could also play a significant factor. With Jake Sanderson and Thomas Chabot in the fold, there is less pressure to address that left side of the blue line when there are already two considerable puck-movers already at left defence. Handedness could play a considerable role in choosing Parekh or Yakemchuk depending on their availability.
Another factor to consider is that a knock on many of the defencemen at the top of the draft not named Silayev, is that their defensive game either needs improvement or more consistency. Granted, this concern is atypical of many draft-eligible prospects, but for an organization that needs to improve its five-on-five play and defensive aptitude, perhaps the Senators go in a different direction entirely preferring to draft a forward.
Admittedly, the combination of Tij Iginla’s goalscoring ability, skill, bloodlines and compete level is pretty intriguing. There is also the bloodline factor to consider too. And, that’s before even mentioning that he is one of the younger draft-eligible players. If that second-half upward trajectory is the start of a meteoric rise for the player who already compares favourably to his older peers, how much better can he become? A year from now, will he be one of the best selections in the draft?
Those are the difficult questions Ottawa’s amateur scouting staff will answer, but ultimately, the narrative of selecting the best available talent will prevail. If the highest-upside pick is a dynamic puck-moving defenceman who can anchor the first power play unit, he will be the choice.
Fortunately, quality options are available at several positions, so in that sense, the organization theoretically cannot do wrong. In saying that, however, there is an accompanying pressure because the Senators have not made a first-round pick in three years. There is considerable pressure to knock this one out of the park because of Ottawa’s depleted farm system. And, in Staios’ first draft as general manager, there is an added pressure to assuage fans and instill confidence that this front office is diligent and capable of making smart decisions.
Lots of comments/questions from me today. Thanks for the thought provoking article and keep up the interesting writing!
One more model question, does it include any measument of defensive qualities? For example, Sanderson may or may not outscore Chabot over the next few seasons, but there is little doubt that he will "out-defend" him.