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The 2019 draft is all complete, and the Senators made five more picks after the first round. Here are the selections they made, and I’ll add my final analysis of everything at the bottom.
32nd overall: Shane Pinto, C, Tri-City Storm (USHL)
Pinto was, again, a bit of a surprise at 32nd overall. Ottawa had plenty of high-ceiling forwards available such as Arthur Kaliyev, Bobby Brink, Raphael Lavoie, Nils Hoglander, and Yegor Afanasyev, but they opted to go for a safer option for the 6’2” centre. According to Colin Cudmore’s expected pick range (based off of 60 scouts lists), Pinto was expected to go 60th overall, and his highest ranking was 45th. He is an interesting prospect because he is a late 2000 birthday and 2018-19 was his first season in the USHL. He did quite well considering that fact, as he led the Lincoln Stars in points with 32 in 30 games. For reference, that team was so bad that the next highest scorer had 27 points---in 62 games.
Although he was projected to be taken a bit lower, those who see him play often think very highly of him:
Now, there’s some obvious bias in those quotes, but perhaps Pinto will be another Senators prospect to prove people wrong in his draft+1 season. He fits a similar mould of responsible centres that the Senators love to take such as Colin White, Shane Bowers, and Josh Norris (trade), so although he looks to be an “off the board” pick, his selection doesn’t totally surprise me. Pinto is yet another prospect who will be playing for the University of North Dakota, as he will be joining Jacob Bernard-Docker and Johnny Tychonick next season.
37th overall: Mads Søgaard, G, Medicine Hat Tigers (WHL)
The Senators first traded the 44th and 83rd overall picks to the Carolina Hurricanes for the 37th overall pick, as they must have been worried that another team was going to take Søgaard. According to Dorion, they had him ranked in the first round, and they obviously didn’t want to lose out on him. The fact that they were that
desperate to select him shows to me that perhaps they aren’t totally sold on Marcus Hogberg, Filip Gustavsson, and Joey Daccord to be sure-fire NHLer starters.
I really don’t like trading up in the 2nd round, especially to take a goaltender (who are much more volatile in the draft), and losing out on a 3rd round pick is quite pricey. Nevertheless, I do really like Søgaard as a prospect. He spent this past season splitting duties with 2017 Senators draftee Jordan Hollett (who was not signed), and I’m sure that’s how they fell in love with his game. His .921 SV% ranked 4th in the WHL, which is incredibly good considering most CHL goalie prospects the Senators have taken in the past had save percentages around .900 or fewer.
He is also a monster at 6’7”, so I’m sure the Senators were intrigued by that size.
Did the Senators need another goaltender? Not necessarily, but now it looks like there’s a really good chance that at least
one of there four prospects will turn into a starter within the next 3-5 years. And there’s something to be said for that near certainty.
94th overall: Viktor Lodin, C, Orebro HK (SHL)
Lodin is a confusing pick, as he is already 20 years old and I'm not sure if I see the upside. To say that he was an off the board pick is an understatement:
Dorion was incredibly excited to get him though, as he’s hoping that his European scouts saw something that nobody else did:
It just seems weird to take a player like him in the 4th round, because there’s a good chance he would have been available even later. Who knows though, and obviously their scouts were adamant on getting him. It’s good to see that Lodin spent the entire season in the SHL, but 5 points in 41 games is pretty underwhelming for a 20-year-old.
It’s hard to comment too much on his actual play, but we can definitely say that picking him in the 4th round was a reach.
125th overall: Mark Kastelic, C, Calgary Hitmen (WHL)
Ottawa’s hoping that Kastelic is a late bloomer, as he is another 20-year-old centre that they drafted. He scored a whopping 47 goals in 66 games (77 points overall) for Calgary, and was third in the league in goal scoring. That’s definitely an impressive line, although I feel like I’d be be a lot more excited about acquiring him as an undrafted free agent. Having said that, he wasn’t even necessarily a reach based on other rankings:
It’s important to note that Kastelic had just 35 points in 67 games in his draft year of 2017, so the hope is that he has improved vastly since that time. He’s built like a freight train at 6’3”, 220 lbs, so it’s not surprising that the Senators were intrigued by his potential. His goal scoring ability this season was fantastic, so perhaps there is something there:
As with any of these overage prospects, it’s hard to tell how much he has developed between the ages of 18-20, because I remember being skeptical of the Christian Wolanin pick at the time as well. He should be playing for Belleville next season, and he might get a decent opportunity there with some players getting promoted, so I’m curious to see how he does right away.
187th overall: Maxence Guenette, RHD, Val d’Or Foreurs (QMJHL)
Guenette seems like a nice pick to finish off the draft, and he is the only player taken by the Senators who was born in 2001. He is another right-handed defenseman, which is good news for their system that was thin on the right side. Considering he was taken at 187th overall, Ottawa seemingly got some good value with this selection:
Guenette has played two full seasons in Val d’Or, and his 32 points in 68 games is not bad when you realize that he was sixth on the team in scoring and the leading point scorer on the Foreurs had just 64 points. He was described as a “steady defender” by Steve Kournianos, which is definitely something that the Senators will need long-term. Look for him to have an even larger role in the QMJHL next season as he heads into his final two junior seasons.
Overall Thoughts
It’s clear that the Senators did not want to take risky players in this draft. None of their skaters have incredibly high upside, although Søgaard looks like a very good goaltending prospect. We’ve known this about the team for years, as they don’t like taking the high-risk, high-reward players. It’s why they left Arthur Kaliyev on the board twice.
I had some thoughts on Twitter, and I pretty much wanted to say the same things here:
I do like that the Senators pipeline for the blueline is as good as it’s ever been (Chabot, Brannstrom, Wolanin, JBD, Thomson, Lajoie, Tychonick, Jaros, and even DeMelo), plus they now have four good goaltending prospects who all have a chance to become a starter in the NHL. They essentially have their bases covered there, although they obviously still need some of those players to develop further.
The only thing that frustrates me is that they desperately need high-end talent at forward. Hopefully they can take someone in the top-3 in 2020 that fits that bill, but they still could have taken a potential impact player at 32 but instead opted for a bit of a safer pick with Pinto. That’s not to say that Pinto is a bad prospect or that he won’t turn out, but I would have rather taken players with higher ceilings.
It’s obviously too early to say if this is a good draft or not, but we can still say whether or not they took certain players too high or not, plus it’s fair to comment on player’s upside in relation to others. This draft doesn’t have me too excited, but I do think the Senators could get some NHL players out of this crop.
Besides, the 2020 draft is the one that really matters.
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