2018 draft - How will it go?

[reggiebarnes]

Yup. No need to rebuild when you are a lottery team that's traded away it's next lottery pick for a Center that may walk as a UFA after 1 year.

Duchene is a UFA next summer not this summer. Strong indications are they are signing duchene this summer, but we?ll see when the time comes. They didn?t give up the pieces they did to not re sign duchene .

Lottery team is also a meaningless term now since every non playoff team is a lottery team

[fungchen3]

It makes no sens for Ottawa to give up their pick this year . They won?t finish this low again, and you can?t jut keep next years in the hope that you somehow win jack Hughes even though the odds will be extremely low. Ottawa?s core pieces are not young, they are built to compete now but had off year. Even if they miss the playoffs, it won?t be a great pick

There's a good chance they are trading Erik Karlsson. And, it could be for prospects, picks and youth. Unless they switch their focus and demand "win now" players in a deal for EK.
Remove Karlsson from the Sens and they are most likely brutal and will be among the favorites to win the Hughes lottery.
The Sabres, Canes and Oilers should be better. Arizona, maybe. I don't see the Sens improving much without Karlsson.

[reggiebarnes]

There's a good chance they are trading Erik Karlsson. And, it could be for prospects, picks and youth. Unless they switch their focus and demand "win now" players in a deal for EK.
Remove Karlsson from the Sens and they are most likely brutal and will be among the favorites to win the Hughes lottery.

If they trade karlsson they would be getting a bonafide defenceman in return (plus the other stuff). Not karlsson level no doubt, but somebody to fill the hole and somebody who is proven. I?m pretty confident they will be better than 3rd last regardless if karlsson is traded (remember, he was bad for 75% of the year recovering from surgery which is why they finished where they did along with goaltending) .

Yes remove karlsson and replace him with nobody would result in that, but that?s not happening. They won?t be trading karlsson for prospects and picks if they trade him, which signs are pointing to it happening at this point. They could have traded karlsson , and Hoffman, at this past deadline for lots of picks and prospects but decided not to. Theh won?t just sell him for futures.

Since they have already announced the 4th overall pick is being kept, they are not selling off any star players unless it?s worth it. We will see what happens July 1 .