Tracking the Last Ten Years of Ottawa Senator First Rounders at the NHL Draft

Barring a trade, the Ottawa Senators will have two first-round picks at the 2024 NHL Draft next month. That's two more than they've had in the past two drafts combined. 

Thanks to last week's lottery, where everything went according to Hoyle, the Senators' first pick will be seventh overall. They also have Boston's 2024 first-rounder, which will fall in the late stages of round one.

The Ottawa draft table will look very different this year, with amateur scout Don Boyd running it and new GM Steve Staios at his side. Last year in Nashville, Trent Mann ran the show, with GM Pierre Dorion overseeing things. Dorion fired Mann a couple of weeks after the draft, and then Staios took over for Dorion four months later. 

With that transition complete and ready for this year's draft, let's look back to see what's become of Ottawa's first-round draft picks over the past decade.

In some draft years, we'll also suggest first rounders they could have had instead. We recognize that it's a little unfair. Every team has missed out on some huge names on the NHL draft board over the past decade. But fair or not, it's part of the evaluation.

With all that said, here we go...

2023: No first rounder. The Senators traded their 12th overall pick to Arizona as part of the March 2023 deal that brought Jakob Chychrun to Ottawa.

2022: No first rounder. The Senators traded their 7th overall pick to Chicago as part of the July deal that brought Alex DeBrincat to Ottawa.

2021: Tyler Boucher, 10th overall. You'd be forgiven if you almost forgot that Boucher is still in the organization. He's Ottawa's most recent first-rounder and has been hurt almost all the time, playing just 83 games. 

The hindsight 2021 pick might be Wyatt Johnston, who had 32 goals and 65 points this season and leads all Dallas Stars in playoff scoring right now. Johnston went 13 picks after Boucher.

2020: Tim Stutzle, 3rd overall; Jake Sanderson, 5th overall; Ridly Greig, 28th overall. It was a fabulous harvest of prospects, helping to make up for the three drafts that would follow. The 3rd pick came from San Jose in the Erik Karlsson deal. The 28th came from the Islanders in the J.G. Pageau deal. And the 5th pick came from the Senators being terrible.

2019: Lassi Thomson, 19th overall. Thomson is still a Belleville Senator and about to become a restricted free agent. He was placed on waivers last fall, claimed by Anaheim, and then reclaimed by the Sens. His time in Ottawa is likely winding down. 

This year, the new management called up three Belleville defencemen to fill in, but none was named Thomson. As for players the Senators could have had instead, no one leaps off the page as someone to lose sleep over.

2018: Brady Tkachuk, 4th overall; Jacob Bernard-Docker, 26th overall. Tkachuk remains the Sens' beloved captain, but as great as he's been, there's a possible hindsight pick here. Many fans (outside of Ottawa) would rather have Quinn Hughes, who went three picks later that year. Hughes had 92 points this year, captaining the Vancouver Canucks deep into the playoffs, and the likely Norris Trophy winner this year. The Sens did get a little lucky that the Habs passed Tkachuk up at third overall. 

The team also deserves credit for steering clear that year of Filip Zadina, who many Sens fans wanted at the time. And Bernard-Docker played his first full season this year, but it's hard to say if he'll continue to be a top-six defenceman when the team becomes good enough to make the playoffs.

2017: Shane Bowers, 28th overall. Bowers is an AHL player for Utica, with 14 points in 43 games this season. When the Senators traded Bowers, his NHL stock hadn't plummeted yet. He and Brady Tkachuk were playing well together at Boston University, and five months after drafting him, the Sens dealt Bowers to Colorado as part of the Matt Duchene deal. Ottawa circled back to draft Tkachuk the following summer.

Jason Robertson of the Dallas Stars would be the 2017 hindsight pick, going 11 picks after Bowers.

2016: Logan Brown, 11th overall. Brown is in Tampa's organization and didn't play this season – out with an undisclosed injury. He's an RFA this summer and has 26 points in 99 career NHL games. 

The hindsight pick here hurts. That would be rugged, skilled, right-shot defenceman Charlie McAvoy, who Boston selected three picks after Brown. Or, if the Sens were hell-bent on a centre, Tage Thompson also went later in round one that year.

2015: Thomas Chabot, 18th overall; Colin White, 21st overall. Chabot has been a fine pick, but giving him $8 million a season was probably a stretch. White's overpayment was in another stratosphere, though – maybe the worst contract in club history. He was bought out in Ottawa and is now in Montreal, where he had zero points in 17 games this season. Your hindsight pick on White might be Brock Boeser and Travis Konecny, two players who went almost right after White.

2014: Gone. The Sens' 10th overall pick was traded to Anaheim as part of the deal to acquire Bobby Ryan. The deal was a quick reaction to Daniel Alfredsson's shocking exit for Detroit. Had they kept the 10th that year, the Sens could have helped themselves to Dylan Larkin, who went 15th overall, or David Pastrnak, who Boston chose 25th overall.

With new management and a shift to making better investments in hockey operations, it will be interesting to see how Ottawa's next decade of first-round drafting compares to the one before.