Last November, the NHL ruled that the Senators must forfeit one of their first-round selections in either the 2024, 2025, or 2026 drafts due to their failure to disclose Evgenii Dadonov’s no-trade clause when they traded him to Vegas in 2021. The issue came to light less than a year later when the Golden Knights tried to flip him to Anaheim at the 2022 trade deadline, a team that was on that no-trade list. (He eventually was moved to Montreal later that summer.) Management in Vegas was understandably displeased about the matter and asked the league to investigate, eventually leading to the penalty to Ottawa.
The last time the NHL took this step was with New Jersey and their initial 17-year contract to Ilya Kovalchuk, a deal that was later reworked to a 15-year agreement. The Devils were fined $3MM and stripped of a first-round pick between 2011 and 2014. They elected not to forfeit in the first three years and in 2014, after Kovalchuk left the team, New Jersey successfully lobbied the league for a lesser penalty; half the funds were returned and instead of losing the first-rounder outright, it was moved to the back of the first round.
It appears that Senators owner Michael Andlauer is hoping that history will repeat itself with his franchise. In an appearance on Amazon’s Monday Night Hockey earlier this week (video link), he lobbied for similar relief when it comes to Ottawa’s penalty:
It is what is it, we move forward, it was before my time. I accept a lot of deliberation went through. I just hope that being good citizens we can get the same type of relief New Jersey did some years ago with a similar situation.
The team elected not to forfeit the pick in this year’s draft, instead selecting defenseman Carter Yakemchuk seventh overall in June. The Sens currently sit 25th in the overall standings and if they wind up finishing the season somewhere around there, it stands to reason that they’ll keep their 2025 selection, push the penalty to 2026, and hope for relief from the league at that time.
However, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters including Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch earlier this month that he has no inclination to lessen the penalty on the Senators. Of course, things can change between now and then but it certainly doesn’t appear to be trending in that direction for now.
It’s worth noting that the pick that Ottawa has to forfeit must be their own selection and not one acquired from another team. That means that if they trade one of their 2025 or 2026 picks, it would lock in them forfeiting the other one as things stand. That will likely play an impact in trade talks as they look to acquire help on their back end as those selections are trade chips that are probably off the table in discussions.
I’m sure most people will just say Bettman was always awful but that’s inaccurate. He did a lot to grow the NHL, even if much of it was unpopular along the way. Legitmately, one of the best commissioners in sports history.
But almost from the day he put himself in the Hall of Fame, he’s just put his feet up on the desk and thrown darts for every decision.
And a few, like the Devils debacle, beforehand.
Tampa and Vegas have barely hidden their manipulation of the rules to negate the point of the cap, negate competitive balance and gain advantages in the playoffs that they turned into Cup wins while he smiles and nods along. But god forbid an intern in Kanata miss some fine print.
Huh?
What VGK and TB did was technically legal, but so was what NJ did. Gary decided NJ violating the spirit and intent of the rule was enough to punish them, but VGK and TB get away with it…while the OTT thing seems super ticky tacky in comparison.
Like other major sports, the NHL commissioner works for all league owners. With this reality, can you explain why Gary Bettman would be biased in favor of some teams and against others, and why the other owners would go along with it?
So…any ONE owner can fire him? Any two? Any 8? 12?
I mean, getting to CHOOSE which 1st they lose is fairly benevolent in its own right.
Hopefully Bettmann decides to make them give up two first round picks and fines them $5 million for being dumb enough to publicly say it should be changed.
Unfortunately the Luongo penalty is all paid out, otherwise Bettman probably would make Vancouver pay Ottawa’s fine…
so if they use the pick in 2025, I’m assuming the league won’t approve any trade of their 2026 pick.
The problem I have with the penalty is that the contract is registered with the NHL central registry. Even if Ottawa failed to inform Vegas of the no-trade protection, why did they not do their own homework on the contract they acquired? Also, back in the days of CapFriendly, his no-trade clause was listed. This seems more like an oversight on Vegas’ part than Ottawa deliberately withholding information from a trade partner.
I am not a Sens fan in any regard and I thought the penalty did not fit the crime. Due diligence should have been expected on both sides.
I don’t feel like Bettman will reduce this one. He hit the coyotes hard a few years back for a seemingly minor infraction. Hindsight says there was probably friction behind the scenes already, so send a message.
Ottawa’s new ownership has been fairly vocal about this, so maybe Bettman wants to send another message.
Then again, who knows. Punishment for teams seems pretty inconsistent
why not just give Vegas a double-LTIR exemption, so when Stone gets hurt for two months in mid-February, they can acquire 2 stars at the deadline? That Ottawa pick could go to Vegas too.
poor baby Vegas :(