Avs lose lottery, Sens officially rescind 4th overall pick in 2019 Draft
It’s the best possible outcome for Dorion and co. given the circumstances.
I’ll be honest: I didn’t tune in tonight.
After it became inevitable that the Sens were trading Matt Duchene, I just wanted the band-aid to be ripped off as fast as possible. Unfortunately, we had to suffer through another excruciating season on the way to a last place finish, giving the Colorado Avalanche the highest odds for the #1 overall pick:
Here are your NHL Draft Lottery odds pic.twitter.com/IZQWfctVTa
— Mike Morreale (@mikemorrealeNHL) April 7, 2019
In the end, both teams with the best odds dropped down the maximum three spots, with the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, and Chicago Blackhawks having the lottery balls fall in their favour.
It settles the three-way trade between Ottawa, Colorado, and the Nashville Predators as follows:
Colorado acquires:
Shane Bowers, Andrew Hammond, 4th overall pick (1st round) in 2019 Draft, 63rd overall pick (3rd round) in 2019 draft from Ottawa
Vladislav Kamenev, Samuel Girard, 58th overall pick (2nd round) in 2018 (Filip Hallander) from Nashville
Ottawa acquires:
Matt Duchene
(traded in February 2019 for Vitaly Abramov, Jonathan Davidsson, 2019 1st, conditional 2020 1st)
Nashville acquires:
Kyle Turris
(re-signed to a 6Y, $36M contract)
Without hindsight, keeping the 2018 pick was always going to be a good option probability-wise because the team could’ve improved this year and the odds always suggested that this reality could take place.
In hindsight, though, today’s events greatly help — in terms of general fan perception, avoiding giving away an elite NHL prospect in consensus top-two picks, Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko, and not being the butt-end of even more jokes around the league.
They’re still giving up a top-five pick — one that’s likely going to lead to a really good prospect going to the Avalanche — but there’s a mix of players currently ranked between 3rd and 9th overall, and after Brady Tkachuk’s rookie season, I think most Sens fans can be happy with this outcome, whoever the newest Avs prospect might be.
