Senators moves at Trade Deadline signal potential for bright future

The Ottawa Senators accelerated their rebuilding process with three significant trades before the 2019 Trade Deadline.

The Senators sent forwards Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel to the Columbus Blue Jackets in separate trades, and forward Mark Stone was sent to the Vegas Golden Knights. The trades of Ottawa's three highest-scoring forwards brought back draft selections and prospects.
Those pieces will be key to the Senators finding a way back to competing for a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
A team at or near the bottom of the standings usually can look to the future with the opportunity to add elite talent at the top of the draft. But Ottawa traded its first-round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft as part of the package to obtain Duchene from Colorado last season.
The Senators do have a first-round pick in 2019, from the Blue Jackets in the Duchene trade last week, but it likely will come later in the round with Columbus fighting for a spot in the playoffs.

Elite talent can be found later in the first round, but odds naturally diminish the further the pick is from No. 1.
Ottawa has seven selections in the 2019 draft, including four in the first three rounds. It is in the 2020 NHL Draft where the Senators are poised to reap a windfall. They will have their first-round pick and likely the San Jose Sharks' from the Erik Karlsson trade; the Senators get the pick if the Sharks make the playoffs this season, but if San Jose misses Ottawa would get their 2019 pick. They also will have three second-round picks and two third-round picks. Making the most of those selections is the path to building a sustainable playoff contender.
Their first-round pick in 2020 may be a high one, capable of landing an elite-level talent.
Without a draft savior on the way next season, the Senators need to hope the young players on their NHL roster and high-value prospects soon can come close to the production of the key players they have traded away this season.
Their corps of defensemen appears to be a potential bright spot. Thomas Chabot is a rising star and Erik Brannstrom, acquired in the Stone trade, is a top-tier prospect.
Chabot, a 22-year-old, has 47 points (13 goals, 34 assists) in 55 games, tied for eighth among NHL defensemen. Brannstrom, selected No. 15 by Vegas in the 2017 NHL, has 28 points (seven goals, 21 assists) in 41 games in the American Hockey League. The 19-year-old is averaging 0.68 points per game, second among AHL rookie defensemen (minimum 20 games).

Chabot, selected No. 18 in the 2015 NHL Draft, and Brannstrom, would compare to Karlsson on draft slot. But Karlsson, selected No. 15 by the Senators in the 2008 NHL Draft, vastly exceeded that draft position. By the same token, Chabot has provided strong early performance, in terms of point production and relative SAT percentage. Among defensemen to play at least 30 games this season, his 6.07 relative SAT percentage is third, behind Kris Letang of the Pittsburgh Penguins (7.37) and Karlsson (6.40). It would be unreasonable to take a 22-year-old defenseman in his second full NHL season and one with zero NHL experience and expect them to live up to Karlsson, but Chabot and Brannstrom offer sufficient building blocks on defense.
Jacob Bernard-Docker, the No. 26 pick of the 2018 NHL Draft, is having a strong freshman season at the University of North Dakota. The 18-year-old defenseman has 16 points (five goals, 11 assists) in 31 NCAA games.
There could also be future roles for
Maxime Lajoie
and Christian Jaros. The 21-year-old Lajoie has played 56 games this season, and the 22-year-old Jaros has played 48.
The biggest decision left on defense involves the status of Cody Ceci as the 25-year-old can become a restricted free agent July 1. This is the third straight season in which he's averaged more than 22 minutes of ice time per game for Ottawa. Since 2015-16, when Ceci has been on the ice at 5-on-5, the Senators have recorded 44.53 percent of the shot attempts, the worst mark among the eight defensemen to have played at least 100 games during that span.
Forwards Brady Tkachuk and Colin White likely are core pieces, and maybe there's a place for Chris Tierney. Tkachuk, a 19-year-old rookie, has 31 points (14 goals, 17 assists) in 52 games. White has 32 points (13 goals, 19 assists) in 57 games.

White was the No. 21 pick of the 2015 NHL Draft, so he has some pedigree. The 22-year-old had 76 points (35 goals, 41 assists) in 72 games in two seasons at Boston College and had 30 points (12 goals, 18 assists) in 50 AHL games, neither of which suggest that he's going to be a point-per-game scorer in the NHL like Stone has been. That Stone, who has 311 points (123 goals, 188 assists) in 367 NHL games, turned into this caliber of player after being drafted in the sixth round (No. 178) in the 2010 NHL Draft was a massive bonus for the Senators.
The concern, however, will be that Chabot and White's production and relative SAT percentage were driven, at least in part, by playing frequently with Stone because he basically made everyone he played with better.
Tkachuk, selected No. 4 in the 2018 NHL Draft, has a higher ceiling than Dzingel who, like Stone, gave the Senators incredible value for a late-round draft pick (No. 203 in 2011 NHL Draft).
Among other intriguing options at forward are Drake Batherson and Vitaly Abramov.
Batherson, a 20-year-old center selected in the fourth-round (No. 121) of the 2017 NHL Draft, has eight points (three goals, five assists) in 19 NHL games this season and 49 points (18 goals, 31 assists) in 41 games for Belleville of the AHL. Abramov, the key piece acquired in the Duchene trade, had 22 points (12 goals, 10 assists) in 52 games as a 20-year-old rookie with AHL Cleveland, the Blue Jackets' affiliate.
The Senators knew that trading away their top three forwards would create some hard days as they try to rebuild.
But if it's done right, a couple of seasons from now the Senators will have a talented young core and be headed in the right direction.