Rebuilding, retooling, revamping, whatever you wanna call it, I find the Ottawa Senators one of the most fascinating scenarios in the NHL. We’ve seen a few teams launch into another stratosphere immediately with high draft picks (Pittsburgh, Chicago), we’ve seen a few other teams get the high picks but require some time to emerge victorious with ‘em (Tampa Bay comes to mind), and of course some teams never leave the rebuild phase and have to start all over again. Sorry Buffalo, that’s you.

The Ottawa Senators – for all the negative PR they’ve received in the last 5 years – have been sailing in rebuilding waters for quite some time now. Unexpectedly, after a run to the Conference Finals in 2017, the Senators completely plummeted the following season and were the brunt of every NHL joke when they traded their first rounder for Matt Duchene and finished at the bottom of the league, leaving the powerhouse Avalanche to select Bowen Byram at 4th overall with their draft pick. Not exactly a textbook rebuild.

Things have been looking up for the Sens though, and they somehow managed to break even on that disastrous first round trade by swindling a lottery pick out of San Jose in the package they got for Erik Karlsson, which translated to Tim Stutzle. They’ve accumulated a solid base of young talent to build from, and have a second wave of prospects ready to soon make the jump. The Binghamton Senators have graduated a few players of late, and it’s now time to see what the Sens are made of.