After 10 months of not knowing exactly what pick the Senators would be giving up to the Colorado Avalanche in the 2019 draft, we finally have our answer.
In what is strangely one of the “happiest… days of the season, the Avalanche will be picking fourth:
We can't even be mad.#GoAvsGo pic.twitter.com/pB5g4gDzf1
— x- Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) April 10, 2019
The rest of the draft order is as follows:
And there you go. NHL Lottery order is set. pic.twitter.com/A4s13G1vr1
— Tankathon.com (@tankathon) April 10, 2019
Although it’s not ideal that both the Devils and Rangers will be picking in the top-two, at least neither of them are in the Atlantic Division. Furthermore, the biggest sigh of relief is that not only are the Senators not missing out on Jack Hughes at number one, they won’t be missing out on Kaapo Kakko and whoever goes third. Yes, the 4th pick will still end up being a solid player that would’ve been a huge addition for the Senators, but I can live with them losing a very good player. What I would not have been able to live with was them losing a potential top-10 player in the league like Hughes or Kakko.
And who knows, perhaps Dylan Cozens, Bowen Byram, Vasili Podkolzin, Kirby Dach, or Alex Turcotte will end up becoming just as good as Huges or Kakko. But for now, the pain is eased (as much as it could be). For once, the Senators ability to lose worked out in their favour.
Knowing where the Avalanche will pick now, the decision to draft Brady Tkachuk rather than giving up the 2018 4th overall pick ended up being the right decision. It was the right decision at the time based on the math that said they were more likely to end up drafting 4th or potentially even worse in 2019, so even if they “won… the lottery, I wouldn’t have blame the Senators for their thought process. Will Ottawa be losing out on a quality player at 4th overall? Obviously, but Tkachuk has already proven that he is a top-six forward who is only going to get much better, so I think at worst, whoever the Avalanche take at 4th ends up being just as good as Tkachuk. If the pick was going to be either first or second though, I don’t think I could have said the same thing.
Now, the original Matt Duchene trade is still horrendous even though the absolute worst case scenario didn’t happen. Pierre Dorion severely overestimated his team and overestimated his ability to keep Duchene around in Ottawa. That can’t be undone, but at least now the Senators and their fans can move on from this debacle. This is rock bottom, but at least there is nothing in the immediate future that can potentially hurt them. Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko were never going to be walking through that door no matter what, and I’m incredibly relieved.
I’m also happy that the jokes about giving up the first overall pick are over, even though it’s not as if fans were fazed by those because there is so much apathy right now. Jokes about giving up the 4th overall pick and about the Senators in general will not be over, but at least it’s not nearly as bad as it could be. Furthermore, giving up a 1st overall pick just sounds so much worse, and it would have been the butt of jokes for years. Wow, the bar that this organization has to clear these days for me to be happy is hilariously small.
The most hilarious thing about tonight is that the order was leaked a good 12 minutes before they even started announcing the teams on TV:
LEAKED IMAGE: NJD, NYR AND CHI TOP 3 pic.twitter.com/49qpm9eSHN
— JeppoðŸ (@cloutkaniemi) April 10, 2019
Next season we will hopefully be happy for a different reason at the draft lottery.