It's a big week for Ottawa Senators general manager Steve Staios and his amateur scouting staff. They'll gather to make a total of six amateur player selections this Friday and Saturday in the annual NHL Draft.

However, in a strange twist this year, Staios and his team won’t actually be at the draft.

In a classic case of trying to fix something that didn’t appear to be broken, the NHL has made a major change to decentralize the event. In other words, the Senators and the 31 other NHL teams will be staying home to make their selections. 

Here's how it's expected to play out.

Staios and his staff will meet somewhere in Ottawa on Friday and Saturday to make their selections remotely. They’ll begin with their first pick at 21st overall, relay that choice to a Senators employee in Los Angeles, and the selection will be announced by a special guest.

That guest could be a current or former player, or a celebrity with ties to the team. That's a trend the Senators may have nudged forward in 2020 when former Jeopardy host, the late Alex Trebek, announced Tim Stützle’s name in a recorded message.

The only exception to this new format will be the New York Islanders’ first overall pick, which Commissioner Gary Bettman will announce.

As for the players, the NHL has invited only the top 50 prospects to attend in person, based on the final rankings from NHL Central Scouting. Other prospects are welcome to go, but they didn't get a formal invitation.

Once the Senators make their first-round pick, the player will be brought into what the league is calling a “virtual hockey house,” complete with Senators branding in the background. There, through a two-way camera setup, the newest Senator will meet Staios and the rest of the staff for the first time, a virtual interaction that may be televised. There may also be a reporter in the room for a quick in-person interview with the player.

The move to this decentralized format was announced earlier this year, but by the time the GM meetings rolled around in March, some general managers had already begun to rethink it. It hasn’t turned out to be the cost-saver many had hoped, raising the possibility this could be a one-and-done experiment.

But it should be an interesting one, and one thing is certain. The incredible, high-tech 2024 Draft presentation at The Sphere in Las Vegas has left Los Angeles with an extremely tough (impossible) act to follow.

Your Handy 2025 Senators Draft Guide

After their splashy 21st overall selection, and barring a trade, Senators fans are in for a long wait before their next pick. Barring a trade, they won’t select again until the final pick of the third round, or 96th overall.

Here's what they have in their draft arsenal and how they acquired each pick:

Round Two:

They don’t have a second-round pick. It was packaged up back in March as part of the Fabian Zetterlund trade.

Round Three

They do have a third-round pick, but it’s not their own. The Sens traded away their original third-rounder last summer as a sweetener to convince the St. Louis Blues to take Mathieu Joseph’s contract off their hands.

The 2025 third-round pick they do have came from the Florida Panthers at last year’s deadline in the Vladimir Tarasenko deal. But its value dropped sharply over the past two months after Florida went on to win another Stanley Cup. So, it’s the final pick of the third round.

Round Four

While the Senators may hold the last pick of the third round, they’ll have the first pick in the fourth—originally belonging to the San Jose Sharks, the NHL’s worst team this season. That gives Ottawa back-to-back picks at 96 and 97.

The fourth-rounder came in the Zetterlund deal. The Senators dealt away their own fourth-round pick last July to the Edmonton Oilers as part of the Roby Jarventie trade, which brought back Xavier Bourgault and Jake Chiasson.

Et cetera

The Senators then have one pick in each of the fifth, sixth, and seventh rounds, all their own.

Round one of the NHL Draft is set for this Friday night (June 27th) at 7pm in Los Angeles.

Steve Warne, Site Editor
The Hockey News Ottawa
(Banner image credit: Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images)

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