After a disappointing season, the Ottawa Senators are preaching a rebuild to the masses. Pierre Dorion stated in his end of year press conference multiple times that he wants to build a team to compete perennially for the Stanley Cup — three to five years from now. You cannot do that without assets, the most valuable being picks at the draft.

The Senators currently hold two picks in the first round of the 2018 NHL Entry Draft. One being a guaranteed top five pick, the other is the Penguin’s first round pick that they acquired in the Derick Brassard trade. Pittsburgh’s pick is at best 22nd — however the way the playoffs are shaping up, it looks as if we can expect the Penguins to be making another deep run this season. Realistically this pick is going to end up somewhere between 28th to 31st.

So why should Dorion look to trade away this pick? There’s a couple of strong arguments in this situation actually. The main reason in my opinion has to do with recovering assets. After Pittsburgh’s pick, the Senators do not have a selection in the draft until the fourth round, the 95th pick in the draft. If GMPD was able to trade away the very late first round pick to a team with their eye on a certain player; in favour of acquiring a mid second round pick + a third round pick, they totally should. The probability a late first round pick versus a second round pick becomes an NHL regular is almost minute in the difference (source). On top of that, adding ~80th pick makes sense if you want to have a higher chance at adding players that will be on your roster by the time you want to be perennial contenders.

For a very understaffed, overworked scouting department, the Senators have a relatively strong track record of drafting in the later rounds. Since taking over in 2015(iirc?) Trent Mann has drafted these players in rounds 2 or later:

Alex Formenton, Drake Batherson, Jonathen Dahlen, Max Lajoie, Filip Chlapik, Christian Wolanin & Christian Jaros.

That’s 7 of 14 picks that look like they will materialize into NHL regulars. A pretty good record considering the historical probability is much less than 50%. I have complete faith in the Senators scouting department to turn potentially two top 80 picks into NHL players rather than have a shot at only one coming from a top 31 selection.

It’s also well documented that we are looking at a relatively strong draft compared to many other years. The difference in skill of the 31st pick and the 47th pick (say) might be near none. It’s hard to say this far away from the draft, but generally speaking it would be safe to assume you are selecting a player of very similar quality.

Another strong argument to consider is that the Senators are guaranteed a top five draft pick in this year’s draft. Drafting top five in 2018 gives you an impact player who has the opportunity to slot into your lineup almost immediately. By trading down for assets with the other pick, you can fill more based on need in the prospect pipeline. Later round picks typically draft on best player available, but there is also a stronger pull to fill positional needs as well. This way you can kill two birds with one stone. You aren’t compromising the skill (unless someone falls dramatically) of a later pick and you get two shots at drafting talented prospects. Having that top5 pick gives you a longer leash — a more compelling argument to either take a chance on a guy that might need to be groomed more. The development path might be longer but in what is being labeled as rebuild — will only work well in the new plan’s timeline.

Personally — I really want the Senators to grab a third round pick to be able to get a chance at Nathan Dunkley. I think he’s the most underrated player in the draft, slotted somewhere in the 70–100 range depending on who you ask. However having watched him play in Kingston a majority of this season, I can tell you he has a nose for the puck and processes the game at an insanely high level. He doesn’t have the high end talent to be a gamebreaker, but his fundamentals are impressive. It’s the stuff you can’t teach a kid how to do that he does so well. He was able to play in the top six of a stacked Kingston team up until the OHL trade deadline — where has was then traded to London — putting up 33 points in 31 games. For a kid in his draft year it’s really impressive. He wasn’t a passenger playing with some elite company(Vilardi, Roberston, Nyman, Rasanen). His skating is pretty average but that’s fixable. Take a chance on the kid Sens Staff, he’s worth it. London wouldn’t have wanted him so badly otherwise.

Anyways, that’s my thoughts. Unless some gamebreaker (like Tolvanen last year) falls to the end of the first round, you really should consider trading down to acquire more assets. More chances to have NHL regulars in your lineup. You’re a good scouting department given your limited resources & your track record reflects that.