Last November, the NHL ruled that the Senators must forfeit one of their first-round selections in either the 2024, 2025, or 2026 drafts due to their failure to disclose Evgenii Dadonov’s no-trade clause when they traded him to Vegas in 2021. The issue came to light less than a year later when the Golden Knights tried to flip him to Anaheim at the 2022 trade deadline, a team that was on that no-trade list. (He eventually was moved to Montreal later that summer.) Management in Vegas was understandably displeased about the matter and asked the league to investigate, eventually leading to the penalty to Ottawa.
The last time the NHL took this step was with New Jersey and their initial 17-year contract to Ilya Kovalchuk, a deal that was later reworked to a 15-year agreement. The Devils were fined $3MM and stripped of a first-round pick between 2011 and 2014. They elected not to forfeit in the first three years and in 2014, after Kovalchuk left the team, New Jersey successfully lobbied the league for a lesser penalty; half the funds were returned and instead of losing the first-rounder outright, it was moved to the back of the first round.
It appears that Senators owner Michael Andlauer is hoping that history will repeat itself with his franchise. In an appearance on Amazon’s Monday Night Hockey earlier this week (video link), he lobbied for similar relief when it comes to Ottawa’s penalty:
It is what is it, we move forward, it was before my time. I accept a lot of deliberation went through. I just hope that being good citizens we can get the same type of relief New Jersey did some years ago with a similar situation.
The team elected not to forfeit the pick in this year’s draft, instead selecting defenseman Carter Yakemchuk seventh overall in June. The Sens currently sit 25th in the overall standings and if they wind up finishing the season somewhere around there, it stands to reason that they’ll keep their 2025 selection, push the penalty to 2026, and hope for relief from the league at that time.
However, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters including Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch earlier this month that he has no inclination to lessen the penalty on the Senators. Of course, things can change between now and then but it certainly doesn’t appear to be trending in that direction for now.
It’s worth noting that the pick that Ottawa has to forfeit must be their own selection and not one acquired from another team. That means that if they trade one of their 2025 or 2026 picks, it would lock in them forfeiting the other one as things stand. That will likely play an impact in trade talks as they look to acquire help on their back end as those selections are trade chips that are probably off the table in discussions.
I’m sure most people will just say Bettman was always awful but that’s inaccurate. He did a lot to grow the NHL, even if much of it was unpopular along the way. Legitmately, one of the best commissioners in sports history.
But almost from the day he put himself in the Hall of Fame, he’s just put his feet up on the desk and thrown darts for every decision.
And a few, like the Devils debacle, beforehand.
Tampa and Vegas have barely hidden their manipulation of the rules to negate the point of the cap, negate competitive balance and gain advantages in the playoffs that they turned into Cup wins while he smiles and nods along. But god forbid an intern in Kanata miss some fine print.
I mean, getting to CHOOSE which 1st they lose is fairly benevolent in its own right.
Hopefully Bettmann decides to make them give up two first round picks and fines them $5 million for being dumb enough to publicly say it should be changed.