March 10, 2024 | 10:24am ET
TheFourthPeriod.com
SENATORS LAID GROUNDWORK FOR FUTURE DEALS
Senators GM Steve Staios
The Ottawa Senators weren’t overly busy on trade deadline day, but that doesn’t mean GM Steve Staios wasn’t active.
After trading Vladimir Tarasenko to the Florida Panthers on Wednesday, Staios and his staff remained aggressive as they explored the trade market for moves that would benefit the club in the long haul.
Yes, the Senators tried to move forward Dominik Kubalik and took calls on defencemen like Erik Brannstrom, Jakob Chychrun and Jacob Bernard-Docker, but Staios insisted the deadline period was a beneficial one.
“I’d say that it was productive, although it didn’t really get any results as far as player transactions. We learned a lot about our team,” Staios told the media on Friday. “We learned a lot about where other teams are at in terms of value, and it helps us with our plan moving forward. It was engaging, for sure. We were extremely active. I think the process, overall, is going to help us in the long run.”
Several teams kicked the tires on Chychrun, including the Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, New York Islanders and Detroit Red Wings, among others, but any move involving the stud blueliner is expected to occur in the summer, perhaps around the NHL Draft.
“I think the conversations that we had with teams were good,” Staios revealed. “I think a lot of those conversations and opportunities are open-ended. It puts us in a good shape moving forward to plan for the off-season.”
The Senators are open to making changes to their roster that will put them in a position to compete for a playoff spot next season.
Staios reiterated the team’s desire to make productive changes to a roster that failed to generate much traction this season.
“We had some very strong discussions on some transactions that we felt were probably pretty close. I think the uniqueness of it was we were approaching this opportunity for the opportunity not just looking at where we are in the standings, the traditional way of moving players out, but we were looking for opportunities to improve our team and support our team. We were involved in a lot of different discussions on different levels,” he said.
“Instead of just going out to make deals at the deadline, we identified where we wanted to get in the market and what we wanted to accomplish. At the end of the day, we didn’t get there at this deadline. We had a vision on both the short-term and the long-term.”
Armed with two first-round picks in this summer’s NHL Draft and $12.815 million in salary cap space this off-season, the Senators are expected to be busy this summer.
Aside from the expectation that trade talks involving Chychrun will pick up this summer, the Senators could engage in trade discussions involving some of their other players. At various points this season, teams inquired about centre Josh Norris, forward Ridley Greig and others. How active the team will actually be is up to Staios and Ottawa’s management committee.
“We thought outside the box,” Staios said. “We were extremely aggressive in some situations to look to expedite the process of the development of this group, with keeping in mind that we weren’t going to do anything rash.”