Will the Ottawa Senators roll the dice?
According to Chris Johnston of Sportsnet, the embattled Canadian franchise plans on using its fourth overall pick during Friday’s NHL draft.
This could change right up until Friday night on the draft floor, but I'm told the #sens are still planning to make a pick at No. 4. Would mean their first-rounder next year is transferred to Colorado to complete the Duchene deal.
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) June 20, 2018
If the Senators do, in fact, pick a player with their first-round pick in Dallas, they will dramatically reduce their odds of drafting American prodigy Jack Hughes in 2019 thanks to a condition in the Matt Duchene trade.
Duchene was flipped to Ottawa last November as part of a three-way deal with the Colorado Avalanche and Nashville Predators. The trade included a conditional first-round pick, swapped from Ottawa to Colorado, which forces Senators GM Pierre Dorion to fork over either the club's 2018 first-rounder or its 2019 first-rounder.
Hughes, who is being hailed as the next great NHL superstar, destroyed the USHL this past season, recording 48 points in 24 games as a 17-year-old forward on the United States National Team Development Program. The consensus top prospect for next year's draft is the younger brother of 2018 blue-chipper Quinn Hughes.
On the flip side, there will be a number of quality prospects available to the Senators in the No. 4 spot. Assuming they remain seated through three picks, forwards Brady Tkachuk and Filip Zadina, as well as defencemen Evan Bouchard and Noah Dobson, are prime options.
Copyright © 2018 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.