Ottawa Senators clinch last in NHL, potentially giving up 1st overall pick

The Ottawa Senators have clinched 31st overall in the NHL, which would’ve given their 1st-round pick the best odds at being 1st overall, if they hadn’t already traded it away.

The Ottawa Senators worst-case scenario heading into this season has almost been completely realized. They are now officially the worst team in the NHL after clinching 31st overall following a 5-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night.

Normally the consolation prize for such a horrible season would be the best odds at getting the first overall draft pick, but Ottawa can’t even have that, because they traded that pick a year and a half ago for Matt Duchene, who isn’t even on the team anymore.

The Colorado Avalanche now own the best odds of winning the 2019 NHL Draft Lottery and at the same time are holding down the final wild card spot in the Western Conference. At worst, the Avalanche will own the fourth-overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft.

The circumstances that led Ottawa to being such a catastrophe is quite a long story.

The trade that began this saga took place in November 2017, when the Avalanche were coming off the worst season by any team in the shootout era and the Senators were fresh off a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they were a single goal away from making the Stanley Cup Finals after a double overtime Game 7 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Matt Duchene was feuding with Avalanche management and wanted to go to a “playoff team,” so they worked out a three-way trade between themselves, the Senators and the Nashville Predators.

Duchene was sent to Ottawa in a deal that will go down in history as one of the most-lopsided and complicated trades of all time.

In summary, in return for a player that didn’t want to play for them anymore, the Avalanche got a backup goalie, three solid prospects and three draft picks, most notably Ottawa’s first-round pick. However, there conditions on that already complicated trade.

If Ottawa’s 2018 first-round pick ended up being in the top 10, the Senators had the option to keep the 2018 first-round pick and send Colorado its 2019 first-round pick instead.

Ever since trading for Matt Duchene, the Senators are a completely different team and not in a good way. Everybody is now gone.

Since November 2017, the Senators have traded Kyle Turris, Dion Phaneuf, Derrick Brassard, Mike Hoffman, their franchise defenseman Erik Karlsson, Duchene himself, Ryan Dzingel and Mark Stone in that order.

All of their top five scorers from the team that went to the Eastern Conference Final are gone.

For a full recap on the tire fire that the Senators have been since the Matt Duchene trade, SensPickTracker has everything covered.

So in the same season that Ottawa went all in for the Stanley Cup, they fell all the way to 30th in the NHL and finished with the fourth overall pick.

Based on the trade conditions, they could either keep the fourth overall pick and give Colorado next year’s pick, or trade that pick and keep their pick for next season.

Ottawa chose to use the fourth overall pick and draft Brady Tkachuk, and send Colorado their 2019 first-round pick, banking that they would somehow be better enough to justify that decision, which brings us to where we are today.

So now the Ottawa Senators have clinched last place in the NHL, giving the Colorado Avalanche an 18.5 percent chance at the top overall pick and a 50.4 percent chance at picking in the top three.

The projected first- and second-overall picks, Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko, are both projected to be elite players with the potential to be players you could build a team around.

The Avalanche already have an outstanding young core in place, led by none other than Nathan MacKinnon, and the Senators might’ve just handed them the final piece into making them into bona fide Stanley Cup contenders for years to come.

The Senators do however own one first-round pick in this year’s draft, acquired in return for Duchene from the Columbus Blue Jackets at the trade deadline.

To the rare credit of the Senators, their draft in 2020 has seven picks in the first three rounds and they do in fact have their own first-round pick, so far at least.

Their prospect pool is also very strong, but it’s going to be missing out on a top-four pick in this year’s draft, potentially Hughes or Kakko.

The 2019 NHL Draft Lottery will take place April 9, a day before the Stanley Cup Playoffs are scheduled to begin.

Regardless of the result, the Senators have screwed up royally and only the bounce of the ping pong balls in the draft lottery can save them from their worst nightmares of giving up Hughes or Kakko.

The nightmare that Senators fans have been through does not end here and is far from over.