In today’s piece I am going to look at the trades Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion made from 2016-2019. My next piece will look at his trades from the 2019-20 season until the present. I am not going to analyze minor trades, only trades that affected the teams’ progress. You will see each trade below that I feel, affected the team's progress along with how I think Ottawa did in each instance. Dorion took over as GM from Bryan Murray on April 10, 2016.

July 18, 2016. Ottawa trades Mika Zibanejad/2nd round pick to the NYR for Derick Brassard/7th round pick

Although Brassard provided a great playoff run when Ottawa came to within 1 goal of going to the Stanley Cup Final in 2017, Ottawa clearly lost this trade. Zibanejad finally developed into the number one center the Sens had hoped for when they drafted him 6th overall in the 2011 draft.

Nov. 2, 2016. Ottawa trades to Pittsburgh a 2017 5th round pick(Jan Drozg) for Mike Condon.

Ottawa easily won this trade as Condon played in 40 games that season with a 2.50 GAA and a .914 SV%. Condon was huge for Ottawa in 2016-17 after Sens goalie Craig Anderson found out his wife Nicholle had cancer.

Mar. 1, 2017. Ottawa trades former 1st round pick Curtis Lazar & Michael Kostka to Calgary for Jyrki Jokipakka and the Flames 2017 2nd round draft pick.

That 2nd round pick ended up being Alex Formenton. Again, Ottawa won this trade as Formenton should be a part of this young core for years to come.

Nov. 5, 2017. Huge 3 team trade.

Colorado acquires from Ottawa Andrew Hammond/Shane Bowers, 2019 conditional 1st round pick(#4 overall Bowen Byran) and 2019 3rd round pick(Matthew Steinburg and from Nashville Vladislav Kamenev, Samuel Girard and a 2018 2nd round draft pick.

Nashville acquires Kyle Turris and Ottawa acquires Matt Duchene.
The clear winner in this was Colorado by a landslide! Girard and Byran will play on the blueline for years to come. I will revisit this trade later when Ottawa traded Duchene.

Feb. 23, 2018. - 3 team trade

Ottawa acquires Ian Cole, Filip Gustavsson, 2018 1st round pick and 2019 3rd round pick from Ptt
Pitt acquires from Ottawa Vincent Dunn and 2018 3rd round pick and from Vegas Derick Brassard and Tobias Lindberg
Vegas acquires from Ottawa Derick Brassard and from Pitt Ryan Reaves plus 2018 4th round pick.

When you look at the end result of this 3 team trade, the key piece in all of it is goaltener Filip Gustavsson. Sens fans got to finally see him in action at the end of last season. His future looks promising and Ottawa definitely walks out as winners on this trade. The fact that Ottawa got something in return for Brassard after losing Zibanejad for Brassard to begin with is a nice result.

June 19, 2018.
Ottawa acquires from SJ Mikkel Boedker, Julius Bergman and 2020 6th round pick
SJ acquires from Ottawa Mike Hoffman Cody Donaghey and 2020 5th round pick
But the real issue with this trade was that SJ flipped Hoffman right away to Florida for a better return than Ottawa got! SJ traded Hoffman/2018 7th round pick for 2018 4th and 5th round pick plus a 2019 2nd round draft pick.

Sept. 13, 2018.
Ottawa acquires from San Jose, Dylan DeMelo(flipped out for a 3rd round pick in 2020, look at that pick in tomorrow’s blog), Chris Tierney, Rudolph Balcers and Josh Norris along with 2020 conditional 1st round pick(Tim Stuzle), 2021 conditional 2nd round pick(Zach Ostapchuk), 2019 2nd round pick( Jamieson Rees)
San Jose acquires Erik Karlsson and Francis Perron

Well, what else can you say about this trade other than Ottawa came out ahead by a country mile! Naturally the experts will say nobody saw Karlsson declining as fast as he did. Norris and Stutzle will be with Ottawa long term and have a massive impact on the team’s success for years to come! DeMelo was terrific in his 2 years in Ottawa while Tierney has been solid until this past season. Balcers is now back in SJ after being claimed off waivers this past season.

Nov. 22, 2018.
Ottawa acquires 2020 conditional 6th round draft pick(Cole Reinhardt)
Edmonton receives Chris Wideman

This trade seemed like a minor move at the time. Wideman’s days were numbered after the Uber incident in Arizona. After seeing Reinhardt this past season with Belleville, he might be one of those diamond’s in the rough as they say. He had a solid junior career in Brandon but the coaching staff spoke highly of him in his first season in the AHL. Let’s see how he develops this coming season.

Feb. 22, 2019.
Ottawa acquires Vitaly Abramov, Jonathan Davidsson, 2019 conditional 1st round pick* (CBJ - #19 - Lassi Thomson) and 2020 conditional 1st round pick** (CBJ - #21 - Yegor Chinakhov)
Columbus acquires Matt Duchene and Julius Bergman

Dorion played his hand too early by making Duchene a healthy scratch. Every team knew Ottawa wanted to move him, Dorion played his hand and the leagues GM’s knew it. He managed to draft Lassi Thomson with one of the picks. The other 2 prospects didn’t work out. I remember at the time, many experts thought Dorion should have went after the Jackets higher end prospects. But Ottawa had no leverage and Columbus knew it. Duchene signed in Nashville so looking at this trade now, Ottawa came out as slight winners in terms of what they got. Many experts will say, considering what Ottawa gave up to get Duchene they lost this trade as they didn’t get back enough assets counter to what they gave when trading for Duchene only 15 months earlier.

Feb. 23, 2019.
Ottawa acquires Anthony Duclair and 2020 2nd round pick/2021 2nd round pick
Columbus acquires Ryan Dzingel and 2019 7th round pick

Ottawa got the better of this trade as Duclair produced in his short time with Ottawa. Dzingel never worked out in Columbus, nor did he in Carolina. It will be interesting to see how he does in Arizona this year.

Feb. 25, 2019.
Ottawa acquires Erik Brannstrom, Oscar Lindberg and 2020 2nd round pick(Egor Sokolov)
Vegas acquires Mark Stone and Tobias Lindberg

At the time, Dorion called it his finest day as GM! Yikes! Again, similar to the Duchene trade, Stone had been a healthy scratch and teams knew they didn’t need to offer their finest package. I was told Dorion held out too long, after being offered better packages over the weekend prior to trade deadline Monday, he had to scramble on trade deadline day after the teams that had called on Stone, had moved on and targeted other players. Dorion needs to hope Sokolov becomes an fulltime productive player down the road. The jury is out on Brannstrom. As it stands now, this was Dorion’s worst day as a GM as he should have got much more in return for Stone. How he didn’t get a 1st round draft pick as part of the package, shows you how he overplayed his hand with Stone!

June 22, 2019.
Ottawa acquires 2019 2nd round draft pick and select Mads Sogaard.
Carolina acquires 2019 2nd and 3rd round draft pick

Ottawa moves up to get the goalie they coveted. After seeing Sogaard in a small sample size to end the AHL season with the Belleville Senators, Ottawa may have a heck of a goaltender for years to come. Early dividends points to Ottawa winning this trade.

I am curious to hear Sens fans, all hockey fans thoughts on how the first three years of Dorion’s trades panned out.
Thanks for reading.
Kevin

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