Ottawa’s scouting team expects some elite defensive depth to be taken early and maybe some undervalued first-year NCAA players later on.
At the NHL Draft, you never mind picking 32nd overall, because it usually means you just won the Stanley Cup. But this year, that selection didn't come with a prize; just penance.
The Senators will pick at 32, dead last overall, as their punishment for a messed-up trade from five years ago. And since the NHL's original ruling was no pick at all in Round 1, the Sens aren't complaining.
Without the league's change of heart, it would have been a pretty dull first day at the draft for the mighty Sens. Their first pick would have been the coveted 72nd overall selection, which is the pick they got from Florida in the 2024 Vladimir Tarasenko deal.
What also makes the Senators' first-round pick unique is that they're allowed to trade it. Commissioner Gary Bettman still wanted to set an example, and set it the way an elementary school teacher might handle a student who was causing trouble.
Back of the line, kid, and stay there.
So as their time to pick approaches in Buffalo on June 26, there will be no trades, no drama. They will absolutely choose someone at 32.
Senators head amateur scout Don Boyd, who's making a list and checking it twice, talked about his scouting team's preparation this week on TSN 1200 radio.
"We build our list with the idea that these players are going to go in this order, or that we would have them in this order if we were making every pick one to 32," Boyd said. "Other teams will make decisions for us. There may be somebody else outside of our 32 that jumps ahead of our pick, and then we have our list that we can react to that.
"If we were in a position where we could trade the pick... we would still build our list the same way."
No two teams will have the same draft list, so the Senators will almost certainly come away with a player they currently have ranked somewhere in the mid-to-high 20s.
Boyd figures that at least five prospects who they have ranked higher than 32 may be available to them. Or to put it another way, roughly five other teams are expected to use their first-round pick on players who aren't on the Sens' list.
He says there are even three players outside of their top 32 that they would still be very happy with. So they expect to end up with one of eight players.
Boyd, 73, has been around the scouting game for a long time, and was asked how the first-round talent depth this year stacks up with drafts of the past.
"We're looking at a draft that's got a lot of defensemen involved in the top 10-12 of the draft," Boyd said. "There are possibly 6 or 7 that could go in that area... it's a deep draft as far as defensemen go."
One thing that has dramatically changed draft evaluation is the relatively new NCAA eligibility rules.
"Players can go now to major junior and then go to college, and so now our perspective has changed when we're looking at players that are playing at so many different levels.
"We look at players who maybe have not produced at the college level in their first year, and we know they can produce or they've produced before. So we have to go back into their background, acknowledge what they've done in the past and take the big picture of what they've done this year."
Sounds like Boyd and his staff may have a college player or two in mind that other teams might be undervaluing.
The 2026 NHL Draft will be held at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York.
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
This story was first published at The Hockey News' Ottawa Senators site. Check out more from THN.com/Ottawa at the links below.