The NHL Draft is always an important time of year for an NHL franchise. Heading into the 2025 NHL Draft, the Ottawa Senators currently have the 21st overall pick in the first round of the draft. The Senators also currently have one draft pick from the third round to the seventh round as well in the draft.
As the 2025 draft is getting closer, the Senators will do some heavy scouting to land a player to make a positive impact on the franchise for years to come. With the Senators making the 2025 playoffs, the window to win for years down the road is wide open.
The hard truth about the draft is that it produces more misses than hits. As the draft gets closer, it's always a fair time to take a look back at some big misses.
Worst draft in Senators history from 2010s is 2014's draft class
While the Senators made the playoffs five times and landed important franchise players in the 2010s, the Senators have had their fair share of bad draft picks. As an overall draft, the 2016 NHL Draft was remembered for the Senators taking Logan Brown 11th overall and being a bust. However, there is one draft as a whole that was the Senators' worse of them all.
That would be the 2014 NHL Draft. In that draft, the Senators had five selections. The Senators didn't have their first-round draft pick that year due to them trading it away in the Bobby Ryan trade in July 2013.
Andreas Englund was the Senators' first selection in the draft at 40th overall in the second round of the draft. Englund has recorded 20 points while playing in 197 NHL games in his NHL career.
Englund played in 35 combined games in the 2024-25 season as a member of the Los Angeles Kings and Nahsville Predators. Of those 197 career games, Englund played 33 of them with the Senators and recorded just three assists.
The next four selections after Englund by the Senators never played in an NHL game:
Miles Gendron (70th overall)
Shane Eiserman (100th overall)
Kelly Summers (189th overall)
Francis Perron (190th overall)
At the 2014 NHL Draft, the Senators passed on some familiar players in the NHL like Brandon Montour, Brayden Point, Devon Toews, Viktor Arvidsson, Kevin Lebanc and even Victor Olofsson. 2014's draft class for the Senators will always be remembered as a dud.