Can't you still get 4th overall ?
If we finish last, the Avalanche get 4th overall or better.
I'm not going to google it, but if I recall it might work out to something like almost equal chances at 4th/3rd/2nd/or 1st overall.
As a Sens fan, I'm already in the mindset that we've given them the 1st overall, it's over with, that's it. That way, I won't be irrationally annoyed for a week if it happens.
I really don't like the mythology of the Duchene trade, because Sakic completely mismanaged the situation. He had apparently turned down some extremely solid offers and painted himself into a corner. According to Friedman prior to Dorion bailing him out, Sakic was sweating. The guy got lucky, and now it seems like a lot of posters on HFboards have the mentality "see you guys were wrong for insulting Sakic for completely mismanaging this trade, it worked out in the end!". The end result doesn't always validate the process, so that bothers me.
Zibanejad trade isn't the worst trade. It at least made perfect sense at the time. Dorion's vision was win now, and to accomplish that his mission was to acquire veteran's who could help the team realize that vision at the expense of younger players who might be better a few years down the road. So he flipped Zibanejad who had tremendous potential but was called out for inconsistent effort by every one of his coaches (including Vigneault when he first went to New York) for a cost controlled playoff warrior who at the time was perceived to be an upgrade. Regardless of whether we were a contender or a bubble team, our entire window to do anything remotely close to winning was based around Karlsson's contract, which at the time of the Zibanejad trade had three years remaining.
Calling the trade the worst trade ever ignores that due to finances, and the dynamics of the situation, we were probably going to get Zibanejad on a 1 or 2 year deal prompted by arbitration, and then be in a position to lose him to free agency. He'd be in the UFA group with Duchene, Stone, and Dzingel where he'd be looking for a huge extension, or looking to be traded. If we trade him in this market, we probably end up with similar value back to what we ended up turning the Brassard trade into (even considering the high 2nd we originally gave up).
On paper, it's an awful trade. Looking at the Senators unique situation, I can see how it made sense.
