Senators Have A Critical Decision To Make For The First Round Pick

The Ottawa Senators have 24 hours to decide whether they will pass up their first-round pick in the NHL draft this year or if they will postpone that decision until 2025 or 2026 due to an invalid Evgenii Dadonov trade. In March 2022, the Vegas Knights traded Dadonov to the Anaheim Ducks with a conditional second-round pick for blueliner John Moore and the arrangement of hitman Ryan Kesler. However, sometime after the bargaining had happened, Vegas stated they had realized issues regarding the trade, and the Knights were seeking advice from the league office about the matter.

Vegas stated that the controversy surrounded Dadonov's limited no-trade provision in his settlement, which he signed in October 2020 with the Senators. The provision specified that Dadonov could not be traded without first yielding a 10-team no-trade list.

The Anaheim Ducks were on a past no-trade list to Ottawa. However, when the Golden Knights exchanged for Dadonov in July 2021, no one pointed out the trade shielding on the trade call with the Senators and the National Hockey League. Consequently, it was not addressed when Vegas finalized the trade with the Anaheim Ducks.


Some fans think that the Ottawa Senators shouldn't forfeit and go along with plans of improving for next season while others think that the NHL should do something about the system to prevent these types of errors from happening in the first place. Others still think Vegas is to blame for the entire ordeal and that it was a mistake that has already been corrected, so why forfeit?

I think they should wait to decide on this matter and work on building a solid team before choosing, but we will just have to wait and see what Ottawa decides to do.