The NHL has announced a surprising turnaround, determining that the Ottawa Senators are no longer mandated to relinquish a first-round draft selection for their involvement in a voided 2022 transaction between Vegas and Anaheim, which concerned winger Evgenii Dadonov.
Instead of surrendering their initial-round selection in June’s NHL Entry Draft, the Senators are now set to choose last (32nd position overall) within the first round and will incur a penalty of $1 million in Canadian currency. This sum will be directed to the NHL Foundation Canada, a philanthropic entity endorsed by the league.
At the time the Senators dealt Dadonov to the Golden Knights in July 2021, no disclosure was made regarding the winger possessing trade safeguards. The agreement he inked with Ottawa in October 2020 contained a provision stipulating he could not be transferred without first providing a list of 10 teams to which he would not consent to be traded. Subsequently, Vegas transferred Dadonov to the Ducks in March 2022, oblivious to the fact that Anaheim was included on his 10-team no-trade roster, a list that had been furnished to Ottawa for the 2021-22 season by the stipulated cutoff date within his agreement.
The NHLPA contested the legitimacy of the transaction involving the Golden Knights and the Ducks, prompting the NHL to declare its nullification of the trade, stating, “the deal could not be finalized as Dadonov’s agreement incorporates a restricted no-trade provision, which had not been adhered to.”
During November 2023, the NHL disclosed that Ottawa was required to surrender its initial-round draft choice in either the 2024, 2025, or 2026 NHL drafts. The Senators had already utilized their first-round selections in 2024 (Carter Yakemchuk, 7th pick globally) and 2025 (Logan Hensler, 23rd pick globally), which implied they would need to cede their 2026 selection. This situation persisted until the NHL opted to lessen Ottawa’s penalty.
The Senators petitioned the league for clemency, referencing significant transformations within the organization following the voided Dadonov transaction. General Manager Pierre Dorion stepped down in November 2023, subsequent to the NHL’s announcement of its sanction, and his role was filled by the present Senators GM, Steve Staios. Furthermore, Michael Andlauer had only recently assumed ownership of the franchise when the NHL imposed the draft-pick forfeiture on the Senators.
“The reason I took on this burden is incomprehensible to me,” Andlauer commented then.
In the end, the NHL concurred that the present Senators ought not to bear the consequences for the misdeeds of a previous administration.
“Following careful and exhaustive deliberation, the League has concluded that an adjustment to the initial sanction is justified,” the NHL declared in a communiqué.
“We entirely embrace the revised penalties the League has decreed today. We extend our gratitude to the league and Commissioner [Gary Bettman] for maintaining an impartial perspective on this matter and amending the sanction,” Ottawa conveyed in a declaration. “The Senators organization is thankful that the monetary penalty will be allocated to the NHL Foundation Canada, aiming to foster the sport’s development within our nation. We deem this affair concluded and shall provide no additional remarks on the circumstances.”
Regarding the draft’s mechanics, each squad concluding its season behind the Senators will advance by one position. Should Ottawa fail to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, it will nonetheless receive the identical lottery probabilities typically allotted to the team for the selection process. However, if the Senators emerge victorious in either of the two lottery selections, a re-draw will ensue.
This marks the second instance within a twelve-year span where the NHL has opted to revoke a draft-pick forfeiture for a club. Initially determining that the New Jersey Devils would be compelled to surrender a first-round selection due to a 17-year contract designed to bypass the salary cap, inked by winger Ilya Kovalchuk in 2010, the NHL subsequently ruled that the Devils would instead choose last in the initial round of the 2014 Draft.
Kovalchuk had departed from professional play in the NHL and relocated to compete in Russia.