Senators working on mastermind plan to get their first-round pick back!

This all stems from the Jacob Trouba trade. Ottawa Senators owner Michael Andlauer believes there was “soft tampering” that took place after Larry Brooks of the New York Post stated that, according to three of his sources, the Rangers had targeted Sens captain Brady Tkachuk amidst their plan to move Trouba out of NYC. The defenseman ended up getting moved to the Anaheim Ducks, in exchange for defenseman Urho Vaakanainen and a 2025 fourth-round pick. But Andlauer is not moving on from this:

“This is about protecting our fans, our players and their families,” Andlauer said. “Brady and his wife (Emma) just had a baby. They don’t need that in their lives.”

The comments were made as general managers met for the NHL’s Board of Governors’ meeting in Florida and many believe the Senators are only working on a sneaky way to get their first-round draft pick back. Ottawa was punished a first-round draft pick for their role in the aborted Evgeni Dadonov trade from Vegas to the Anaheim Ducks in July 2021. The Senators had first traded Dadonov to the Golden Knights, but had repeatedly failed to notify Vegas of the player’s proper no-trade list.

Because the Senators were penalized for breaking league rules, they feel like others should suffer similar consequences and, it that does not happen, they could argue to get their first-round pick back.

“But it would be naive to think this also wasn’t a subtle message to Bettman to eventually get his first round pick back.”

Ottawa could formally request tampering charges or put a more elaborate plan together in order to get that first round pick the Senators never wanted to give up in the first place…

We will see where this goes.