Craig Anderson won the Bill Masterton Award last night at the annual ceremony honoring the best of the NHL, and delivered an emotional speech, and that was the highlight of the evening for Senators' fans.

Erik Karlsson lost out on the Norris Trophy to Brent Burns, and while disappointing to Karlsson fans, it is not as tough to digest as last year's runner up finish to Drew Doughty. Burns had an amazing year as well and was the front-runner for most of the season and although Karlsson changed quite a few minds with his play down the stretch, Burns won quite handily in what amounted to a 2 horse race.

After that initial blow, the Senators, as expected, were dealt another one as top pair blueliner Marc Methot was scooped up by the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft. While I think George McPhee dropped the ball a bit in his overall plan, you can't argue with taking the rugged defenseman and either keeping him or flipping him for some other assets. I would have went about building my team differently given the opportunity, but who am I to judge, time will tell.

But, the sun still rose today and the world didn't end because Methot is gone, I wish him luck but it is not catastrophic and the sky is not falling. Pierre Dorion (who also lost out on an award last night) made the decision to protect Cody Ceci instead of Methot, and then chose not to pay the price in terms of draft pick compensation to have McPhee bypass Methot for another player. Only time will tell if those were the right decisions.

So now the attention turns to the draft, with the first round going Friday night in Chicago. Ottawa picks late (28th) because of their deep playoff run, so with the anything can happen mentality ahead of them, it is tough to know who will be available to them. I will look at some potential names tomorrow, but they haven't shown much inclination to move up in the draft and seem to think they can get a quality top-9 forward or top 5 defenseman in that 28th spot. It is not an overly deep or even top end heavy draft, so it will be a night where they could get the guy they might have in their top 15, because certain teams will see different things in different players, it is that wide open.

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