While Steve Staios did a good job earlier in the offseason bringing in William Eklund to help offset the loss of Brady Tkachuk, the Ottawa Senators still missed out on another target at the draft.
As the first round rolls on, Mason McTavish was traded from the Anaheim Ducks to the St. Louis Blues for the No. 15 and No. 29 picks.
It’s a tough one for Ottawa, mainly because he had been linked there for a while and made a lot of sense on paper. It could realistically be a trade that they live to regret not making.
McTavish could be the one that got away for the Senators
McTavish is a 23-year-old centre who already plays a heavy, physical style and can produce offence. He’s the type of player Ottawa has been trying to reintroduce into the lineup after moving on from Tkachuk. There was a clear fit there in terms of style and role, especially given how thin they still look down the middle at times.
Instead, St. Louis gets it done by moving two first-round picks and stepping in ahead of anyone else who may have been circling.
From Ottawa’s side, the price feels like something they could have matched if they were fully in on it. The most difficult part of it all is that the Senators do have two first-round picks but can't trade #32. So, Ottawa would have had to make up the extra pick, which is something that the Ducks may not have wanted.
Staios still addressed part of the need earlier with Eklund and the Andre Burakovsky trade, but the Senators are still in a spot where the center group doesn’t quite look finished yet. The skill is there, but the heavier element is still something they’ll need to keep chasing, particularly if they want to match up better in division games that tend to get tighter in the second half of the season.
There’s still time with free agency coming and more moves possible through the draft, but this is one of those targets that won’t be easy to replace on the board.
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