If the Senators decide the seventh overall pick and other key future assets aren't for sale, it makes it tougher to land an impact player via trade.
Leading up to the 2022 NHL Draft, former Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion announced that the team was listening to offers for the seventh overall pick.
"It's no secret that we're trying to improve our team and bring players that have some kind of pedigree or experience into our lineup," GM Pierre Dorion told the media two years ago. "Obviously, we've talked about pick seven as a possibility of being moved."
That was a strong bit of foreshadowing as Dorion shipped that pick in a deal for Chicago's Alex DeBrincat the very next day. Dorion felt like the Senators were close, so he surrendered future assets to get help right now.
Fast-forward two years, and the Senators find themselves with the seventh overall pick once again. Their roster is no closer to the playoffs and still lacks several things, including experience. They also need help on defence, in goal, and could use two or three more players who play that heavy hockey everyone now targets.
At the same time, the Senators need to restock their prospect cupboard. Dorion traded some top picks for players he believed could help right away. He took his shot, it didn't work out, and now the prospect deficit needs to be addressed.
The rebuild should be over by now. The window of opportunity should be wide open. And the clock is ticking on a lot of this team's core.
For example, Claude Giroux and Jakob Chychrun will be UFAs next summer. Brady Tkachuk and Thomas Chabot have four years left. Drake Batherson and Artem Zub have three. Any 18-year-old kid the Sens select at seven this month probably won't help any of those players win.
We're betting Staios hangs on to the pick and beefs up that prospect pool, which is probably the smart play. But it signals to the league he's not keen to use future assets as trade bait right now and if that's the case, it will affect his ability to directly trade this summer for impact players.
Because any NHL team that would be willing to part with an impact player (with term) will usually be in rebuild mode. As such, they'll want to acquire those futures assets from Ottawa - like Chicago did in the DeBrincat deal.
If the Senators try to deal with an upper-end team, those teams generally don't trade away their impact players at all. They'll come looking for Ottawa's top guys and try to pay for them with future assets.
But perhaps that's the play: The Senators move out a couple of big names to the better teams, get those future assets, and use the new cap space to get the best players they can in free agency. They may not be superstar free agents, but they'll fit better with what Staios wants to do.
On the other hand, if Staios does have an eye on trading the seventh overall pick, then everything is on the table. The Summer of Steve, anyone?
Whether it's draft day or a big deal before the draft, we should have a good idea by the end of this month whether Staios is going to attempt a quick fix in Ottawa or a slower renovation.