Ottawa can choose to forfeit its first-round draft pick in one of the 2024, 2025 or 2026 NHL Drafts.
Vegas always wins.
After losing Marc Methot to the Vegas Golden Knights in the NHL expansion draft and getting fleeced by the Knights in the Mark Stone deal, the Senators could at least hang their hats on a pretty solid Evgenii Dadonov deal with Vegas. They unloaded the contract of an overpaid player and picked up a useful veteran in Nick Holden, along with a third round pick.
Well, the Sens have now rolled snake eyes on that deal too.
The NHL announced that "the Senators will forfeit a first-round draft pick for their role in the July 2021 trade of Dadonov to the Vegas Golden Knights and the subsequent, invalidated March 2022 Dadonov trade between the Golden Knights and the Anaheim Ducks."
At the time of the deal, the Knights were led to believe Dadonov didn't have trade protection because he didn't submit his no-trade list to Ottawa in time. It turned out that wasn't true. The list was apparently right on schedule and still very much in play. So when Vegas tried to trade Dadonov to Anaheim last year, it was vetoed because the Ducks were on his no-fly list.
The league statement indicates: "Ottawa will forfeit its first-round draft pick in one of the 2024, 2025 or 2026 Drafts. The determination as to which pick will be forfeited will be made by Ottawa within 24 hours of the conclusion of the Draft Lottery for that year."
The league says it will have no further comment on the matter.
The Senators, as an organization, appear to have considerably more to say on the matter. Imagine Michael Andlauer, who's evaluating everything and everyone right now, getting this information less than a month after officially taking over as owner of the franchise.
With GM Pierre Dorion's hotseat cranked up to 11 at the moment, the Senators have scheduled a news conference for 3:15 this afternoon.