In the spirit of Christmas on this Christmas Eve, I want to take about the gift that keeps on giving for the Ottawa Senators: their 2015 draft class.
They had eight picks that draft, and astonishingly, five of them have played at least one NHL game. Talk about something to be thankful for. From 2012-14, the Senators had a horrific run of draft picks, making it harder for them to ever reach that next tier of cup contending teams, but there is a chance that 2015 can almost single-handedly make up for those three years. Here is what their 2012-14 picks look like:
There are only three players who have played more than a handful of games, but one of them is Curtis Lazar, who has been in the AHL with Calgary, the other is Cody Ceci, who has been one of the biggest problems on the team for multiple years, and the last is Ben Harpur, who has only played 70 games and is at best a 6th defenseman. So it’s not as if they hit on three players who are stars---none of those selections are impact players whatsoever. Marcus Hogberg still has a chance to be an NHL goalie, Francis Perron is having a resurgence with the Sharks organization, and Andreas Englund might evolve into a third pairing defenseman, but the point is that those three drafts were a massive blow to the Senators because they failed to inject quality prospects into the system three years in a row.
However, 2015 looks amazing in comparison. Here are their eight players from that draft:
Let’s go one-by-one through this list. Thomas Chabot has suddenly become a bona fide number one defenseman this season with 37 points in 37 games, making that pick at 18 a slam dunk. It’s not easy to find someone as good as him in the second half of the first round. Colin White might not end up being an elite player, but he does have a solid 23 points in 36 games this season, which puts him in second line centre territory. I’ll take that every day for a late first rounder.
Gabriel Gagne is one of three players yet to reach the NHL from this class, and I doubt he ever will. The fact that they traded up to draft him makes this selection look even worse, as the 22-year-old right-winger has only 6 points in 27 games in Belleville. Their other second round pick, Filip Chlapik, looks like a much better selection though. He only has 20 career NHL games, which all came last season, but he has been worthy of a call-up to Ottawa for a while now, with 15 points in 21 games. He is still out with an injury, but I’d be shocked if he didn’t end up in the NHL at some point in the second half of the season.
Christian Wolanin seemed like an odd pick at the time considering he was a 20-year-old, but he turned some heads in his 10-game trial run in Ottawa last season, and from all accounts, he has been very impressive in Belleville this season as well. He has too much skill for him to just flame out, and I’m hopeful for his future as a top-4 defenseman. Filip Ahl is the second disappointing pick from this draft, although it’s almost impossible to have everyone not be disappointing. He is currently playing in the Allsvenskan league and has 12 points in 21 games. In his draft+2 season, he registered just 48 points in 54 games with Regina in the WHL, which pretty much showed at that point that he wasn’t going to be much of a prospect.
Christian Jaros is still not a finished product, and I think he’s being pushed a bit more than he should be, but it is great that he has even made it this far considering he was a 5th round pick. He has shown flashes of being an effective and physical third-pairing defenseman, although I do think his ceiling is capped. Nevertheless, a good pick. Lastly, there’s Joey Daccord, who seemed like a write-off before this season but now might have a chance to add to an insanely good draft class.
Daccord had three lacklustre seasons after being drafted, but in 20 games for Arizona State this year, he has a whopping .930 SV%, which is 5th amongst 51 NCAA goalies with 10+ games played. Many college goalies finish off their school careers in spectacular fashion a la Matt O’Connor, so I’d take his stats this season with a grain of salt, but he’s still a prospect to look out for, meaning we can’t say it was a bad pick just yet. And even if he doesn’t turn out, he was a 7th rounder, so it would be asinine to expect a quality player with that selection.
So what has the 2015 draft given the Senators? A ton.
Without a doubt, it gave them a first pairing defenseman (Chabot) and a second line centre (White). Then if I had to predict the future, I’d say they also received a top-9 forward (Chlapik), a second pairing defenseman (Wolanin), and a third pairing defenseman (Jaros). Furthermore, I wouldn’t rule out Daccord being a starter or a backup, but he’s too difficult to project. Assembling half a defense corps in one draft is incredibly impressive. Doing that plus adding a second line centre and another top-9 forward to boot is almost unheard of.
Obviously, it is still only three and a half years since the 2015 draft, and the Senators need some of these players to fully develop before we can definitively say what kind of players they are at the NHL level. However, Chabot and White are clearly above-average NHL players already, and the others have a very good chance at being role players as well. So even if not all of these three (or four) prospects on the bubble don’t pan out, 2015 will still be a fantastic draft as long as one or two develop properly.
Hell, they could all fall flat on their faces, and Ottawa would still have Chabot and White, which would normally constitute a good draft anyway. The Senators desperately needed to draft the right players in 2015 after missing on essentially every player for the three years prior, and I’ll give credit where credit is due: they picked fantastically well.
And for that, I am thankful.