This past weekend at the 2026 NHL Draft, the San Jose Sharks drafted Alexander Karmanov in the seventh round with the 201st pick.
Right away, Ottawa Senators fans draw similarities to their former captain, Zdeno Chara.
Karmanov is 7-foot-1, 280 pounds, from Moldova. He is three inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than Chara was. The Slovakia native stands 6-foot-9 and 250 pounds. The real question is will Karmanov have an NHL career, and if he does, will he play similarly to Chara?
Well, we won't know the answer to that question for some time. So, it's a good time to revisit how Chara ended up in Ottawa in the first place.
Revisiting the Chara trade to Ottawa
In order to properly revisit this trade, we need to rewind back to the summer of 2001.
It was the 2001 NHL Draft weekend and the New York Islanders were looking to make a splash after finishing last in their division.
They had just secured the second overall pick in the 2001 NHL Draft and they felt the best route was to trade for an established NHL forward rather than picking a prospect.
So, on June 23, 2001, the Islanders pulled off a trade with the Senators that sent the aforementioned Zdeno Chara and Bill Muckalt, along with the second overall pick in the 2001 NHL Draft (Jason Spezza), to the Senators. In exchange, they landed themselves Alexei Yashin.
Yashin would go on to play for the organization for five seasons and become one of the best players on the team. In those five years, he played in 346 games and scored 119 goals and 171 assists for 290 points.
As for Chara, he would spend four seasons with the Senators' organization before moving on to the Boston Bruins. In that time with Ottawa, he would play in 299 games and score 51 goals and 95 assists for 146 points.
Looking back at this trade 25 years later, it is safe to say that the Senators won the deal. They landed both Chara and Spezza, who are two of the greatest Senators players of all time.
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