Which 1st Rounder to Forfeit?

[BondraTime]

Keep forgetting we gave up a 2026 2nd for Chychrun

 

[Sun God Nika]

I went back and checked and with NJ they didn’t announce that the punishment was reduced until March of the last year.

So we probably won’t find out for awhile, but I think we’ll end up with pick #32 next year.

What if our pick was set to win the lottery would we be happy with pick #32?

 

[PlayOn]

What if our pick was set to win the lottery would we be happy with pick #32?

Well no.

But the team is properly run now, and I think most of the time that can get you by (ie wild card spot or just out) even with an average roster. We also have a good goalie. When people point to NYR or Vancouver, these are highly dysfunctional orgs - we don’t have many similarities with them.

Could we just miss the playoffs and then finally beat our terrible luck and win the lottery with 1% odds? Yeah sure. I think it’s a pretty unlikely scenario though.

So if you asked me would I rather have 21st and 32nd or just one pick next year - I would take the two firsts.

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

Well no.

But the team is properly run now, and I think most of the time that can get you by (ie wild card spot or just out) even with an average roster. We also have a good goalie. When people point to NYR or Vancouver, these are highly dysfunctional orgs - we don’t have many similarities with them.

Could we just miss the playoffs and then finally beat our terrible luck and win the lottery with 1% odds? Yeah sure. I think it’s a pretty unlikely scenario though.

So if you asked me would I rather have 21st and 32nd or just one pick next year - I would take the two firsts.

Functional or not, you cannot control injuries or another team suddenly going on a pdo bender that causes you to miss. Psychologically, due to the org being functional, I can't see us having a massive implosion mentally unlike those teams. But again, there's other luck factors at play beyond everyone's control.

 

[PlayOn]

Functional or not, you cannot control injuries or another team suddenly going on a pdo bender that causes you to miss. Psychologically, due to the org being functional, I can't see us having a massive implosion mentally unlike those teams. But again, there's other luck factors at play beyond everyone's control.

There’s always gonna be some form of risk in anything we do.

You can’t win if you balk everytime something could go wrong. I would forfeit this year’s pick if we assume that the punishment won’t change because we don’t have much to lose, but if it lands us an extra pick, I think it’s an easy choice.

 

[SanderSen]

A benefit to a delay is that with deal making to come, you never know if the Sens end up with some kind of first rounder or high 2nd rounder to soften the blow of losing the pick.

 

[Icelevel]

Crazy poll results

There’s a 50/50 chance we have the penalty reduced. Versus 0 if we give it up this year.
There’s also a good chance we get a 1st back in a trade.
There’s also a chance that our pick next year is worse than this years.

Good to know our GM and owner have their heads on straight.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

Crazy poll results

...
There’s also a good chance we get a 1st back in a trade.
...

What trade are you envisioning here? Something at the deadline? Or something at next years draft?

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

I just really want to know the decision already.

 

[MiscBrah]

Crazy poll results

There’s a 50/50 chance we have the penalty reduced. Versus 0 if we give it up this year.
There’s also a good chance we get a 1st back in a trade.
There’s also a chance that our pick next year is worse than this years.

Good to know our GM and owner have their heads on straight.

Where does the 50/50 chance that the penalty is reduced come from. and how does point #2 have any relation here. Only relevant factor I see is your point #3, which is a fair point. But my understanding is that the general consensus is next years draft is much deeper, so a pick a few spots lower may be more valuable next year versus this year. Also, if we give up the pick next year, but are in a good spot in the playoff race, then we don't have a 1st to trade at the deadline for reinforcements.

 

[Micklebot]

Crazy poll results

There’s a 50/50 chance we have the penalty reduced. Versus 0 if we give it up this year.
There’s also a good chance we get a 1st back in a trade.
There’s also a chance that our pick next year is worse than this years.

Good to know our GM and owner have their heads on straight.

50/50 seems like a very generous guess at the odds. What exactly makes you think the NHL is in the business of doing favours for the Ottawa senators?

Getting a first back in a trade doesn't really change anything, we can do that whether we give up this years pick or next years. Why does that matter in the context of what pick to give up?

There's a chance next years pick is worse, but we know that this years crop of talent is worse than next years. Our pick can only go back 11 spots, and 4 of those spots require we go to the conference finals, so realistically, it's more like 7 spots. The difference between 21 this year and 28th next year is likely negligible.

Meanwhile, if next year we suffer some critical injuries, or just take a step back, there's a chance our pick could end up in the lottery, look at NJD, 112 pts one year, drafting 10th OA the next, back in the playoffs (despite some pretty brutal injuries) this year. VGK had the most pts in the league in 2020-21, out of the playoffs the next year, won the cup the year after that. People are far to quick to assume teams are locks to be as good or improve, there's too much parity in the league to assume anything.

 

[bert]

Crazy poll results

There’s a 50/50 chance we have the penalty reduced. Versus 0 if we give it up this year.
There’s also a good chance we get a 1st back in a trade.
There’s also a chance that our pick next year is worse than this years.

Good to know our GM and owner have their heads on straight.

100 percent. Just giving up on fighting for the pick alone is a loser attitude.

 

[DJB]

It’s a no brainer to forfeit 2025.

We pick 21st
No guarantees we make playoffs next year and aren’t involved in lottery
2026 is projected to be stronger


Way way too much risk not forfeiting this years pick. Staois would be thinking short term and it could blow up in his face

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Should we not know for sure that they are keeping it at this point?

We could keep it and trade it to get a more NHL ready player sooner.

Picking another project in this draft by no way means we have a NHL player sooner than forgoing it for next year.

We may have a better than 50% chance of picking a project.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Should we not know for sure that they are keeping it at this point?

We could keep it and trade it to get a more NHL ready player sooner.

Picking another project in this draft by no way means we have a NHL player sooner than forgoing it for next year.

We may have a better than 50% chance of picking a project.

Going by what SS said the day before the draft, said would not say decision, but the decision has been made. Then followed that up with , something like highly likely they keep this years pick.

So I’d say Sens are keeping it going by that.

 

[Micklebot]

If we keep this years pick, I'd say a good outcome is probably finding a player in the vein of Laughton, Roslovic or a McMichael, forget about finding the next Pastrnak or Wyatt Johnston.

A bad outcome, which to be honest is the likely outcome, is a miss, or a guy like Poehling, Lazar or Colin White.

A terrible outcome is a complete bust that never plays.

I don't think we can afford the bad or worse outcomes with our current pool not really having much to speak of, so a trade for a 24-25 year old coming up on RFA that might be pricing themselves out of a team's budget (assuming it comes with an extension) could be the way to go, even if we need to add a touch to make it happen (like a 2nd round pick).

Like, it would be great to add a Holloway or Broberg, and I'm sure the Oilers would have prefered getting a first for either of them rather than the 2nd and 3rd rd picks they got.

 

[BigRig4]

Should we not know for sure that they are keeping it at this point?

We could keep it and trade it to get a more NHL ready player sooner.

Picking another project in this draft by no way means we have a NHL player sooner than forgoing it for next year.

We may have a better than 50% chance of picking a project.

Yeah I’m not sure why no one has reported it yet.

 

[bicboi64]

If we keep this years pick, I'd say a good outcome is probably finding a player in the vein of Laughton, Roslovic or a McMichael, forget about finding the next Pastrnak or Wyatt Johnston.

A bad outcome, which to be honest is the likely outcome, is a miss, or a guy like Poehling, Lazar or Colin White.

A terrible outcome is a complete bust that never plays.

I don't think we can afford the bad or worse outcomes with our current pool not really having much to speak of, so a trade for a 24-25 year old coming up on RFA that might be pricing themselves out of a team's budget (assuming it comes with an extension) could be the way to go, even if we need to add a touch to make it happen (like a 2nd round pick).

Like, it would be great to add a Holloway or Broberg, and I'm sure the Oilers would have prefered getting a first for either of them rather than the 2nd and 3rd rd picks they got.

I was looking at the last 10 players picked 21st overall:

• 2024 – Michael Hage
• 2023 – Charlie Stramel
• 2022 – Owen Pickering
• 2021 – Jesper Wallstedt
• 2020 – Yegor Chinakhov
• 2019 – Sam Poulin
• 2018 – Ryan Merkley
• 2017 – Filip Chytil
• 2016 – Julien Gauthier
• 2015 – Colin White

Some others guys there were Noesen, Fabbri, and Jankowski. We took Volchenkov 21st overall in 2000 lol. Kinda slim pickings for forwards. Chytil or Chinakhov type player wouldn't be the worst