The Ottawa Senators joined the NHL to start the 1992-93 season, and like all expansion teams, they participated in the NHL Entry Draft before their inaugural season. They landed the second overall selection in the 1992 Draft and selected Russian star, Alexei Yashin. Little did they know at the time, this selection would end up playing a major impact on plenty of things, including Clarke MacArthur’s health, Timo Meier joining the Devils, cap troubles for the Senators in 2023 and the Toronto Maple Leafs winning their first playoff series in 19 years.
Yashin reported to the top Russian league for his first season after being drafted and had a strong showing there, posting 22 points in 27 games while adding a point-per-game performance in their 10-game playoff run. After that, he joined the NHL and was a bright spot in some of the darkest times of Senators’ history. The team wasn’t very good during the mid-1990s, but as the team got better, so did Yashin.
Yashin recorded 491 points in 507 games with the Senators before ultimately being traded due to contract disputes. If you want to read more about him and his breakup with the Senators, you can check that out here, but this one will be about what happened next.
Yashin Dealt to Islanders for Chara and Spezza
The Senators decided that trading Yashin was the right move after suspending him for the 1999-00 season. He did return for one more season with the team in 2000-01 but was dealt to the New York Islanders after that. The trade tree dies pretty quickly for the Islanders as they ultimately bought him out in 2007. It wasn’t strictly performance-based, but the team decided they needed to prioritize signing Jason Blake and Ryan Smyth. Yashin did have a high-quality tenure with the Isles, recording 290 points in 346 games with the club. This ended up being the last NHL hockey he played.
As for the Senators, this return meant everything for them. Zdeno Chara and the second overall selection in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft were the headliners, and they added Bill Muckalt as well.
Muckalt played just one season with the Senators, recording eight points in 70 games before becoming a free agent and signing with the Minnesota Wild.
Chara, as a Senator, gets lost in history, but he was a great player for the team and made a huge (no pun intended) impact on the blue line during his time in Ottawa. Of course, he will always be remembered as a member of the Boston Bruins, but in his four seasons with the Senators, he recorded 95 points in 299 games and was great all around.
Unfortunately, like the Islanders with Yashin, the Senators had some cap decisions to make and ended up needing to make a tough decision. They could only keep Chara or another star defenceman in Wade Redden, who was the ultimate choice. Chara reached unrestricted free agency and signed with the Bruins, and the rest is history.
Those relatively quick endings for these branches of the trade tree are just the beginning of how this initial trade is still impacting the NHL in 2023. The final asset the Senators acquired, the 1992 second overall pick, was a franchise-altering piece in Jason Spezza. Widely considered the greatest center in team history, at least for now, he played 11 seasons in Ottawa, recording 687 points in 686 games. He owns three of the top 10 highest-scoring seasons by a Senator, he centred the most dominant line in team history and even held the captaincy for his final season.
Spezza ended up requesting a trade out of Ottawa, and while the official reason never came to light, it was speculated that he was not confident in the direction of the team and wanted a change. This request was granted by then-general manager Bryan Murray, and Spezza was shipped off to the Dallas Stars.
Spezza Sent to Dallas for Paul, Chiasson and More
Murray stated that he had a trade lined up with the Nashville Predators, but Spezza wouldn’t waive his no-trade clause to let the deal go through, which ended up with him wearing Victory Green jerseys down in Texas. The full deal was Spezza and Ludwig Karlsson for Alex Chiasson, Nick Paul, Alex Guptill and a second-round pick in the 2015 Draft.
In terms of the Stars’ branch of the trade tree, it is pretty brief. Karlsson only played two American Hockey League (AHL) games and none in the NHL, and was let go by the Stars after just one season. As for Spezza, in Dallas, he was only a shell of what he was in Ottawa, his best seasons were his first two with 62 and 63 points, and then a steady decline over the next three years with 50, 26, and 27-point seasons to round out his Stars career. He was still a good player for the team but wouldn’t reach the same heights he left behind in Ottawa. He eventually left via free agency and signed with the Maple Leafs, and graduated to a management role, where he worked with Kyle Dubas, and they stuck together and took jobs in Pittsburgh’s management.
The four assets the Senators received in the deal were underwhelming at the time, while they weren’t in a position of leverage in a Spezza trade, fans were upset with the return initially. Chiasson played two years in Ottawa, tallying 40 points in total. He was a good bottom-six asset, but due to a contract dispute, the Senators sent him to the Calgary Flames in exchange for Patrick Sieloff. Sieloff played just one NHL game with the Senators, as well as two AHL seasons, but what he is infamously known for is his hit on Clarke MacArthur. In a training camp scrimmage, Sieloff laid a big, questionable hit on MacArthur, who missed all but four games in the two seasons before with concussion issues and dealt another injury to the forward.
Bobby Ryan and other Senators stuck up for MacArthur, and a fight broke out on the ice. MacArthur only played four regular season games for the Senators after that hit, followed by an impressive 19-game playoff run to the Eastern Conference Final. Sieloff was traded to the Anaheim Ducks for Brian Gibbons, who played 20 games for the Sens before becoming a free agent. The Ducks traded Sieloff to the Tampa Bay Lightning for Chris Mueller, and both Gibbons and Mueller left their teams as free agents.
Related: Hurricanes’ Ron Francis Trade Tree With Maple Leafs
Guptill played one season in the AHL for the Senators then was traded after three games the following season. The trade was Eric O’Dell, Guptill, Cole Schneider and Michael Sdao to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Jason Akeson, Jerome Leduc and Philip Varone. Guptill played 20 AHL games for the Sabres’ farm team before spending the rest of his career in the ECHL.
Leduc played the rest of the season with the Binghamton Senators, while Akeson played one additional year in the AHL before both headed over to Europe. Varone stuck around for two seasons, as well, but managed to sneak into eight NHL games. He then left the organization as a free agent and signed with the Philadelphia Flyers.
Beloved Nick Paul Traded to Tampa
Back to the original Spezza return, Paul and a second-round pick are all that remain. Paul was a late bloomer, not becoming an NHL regular until he was 24, but was an extremely versatile piece that could be used anywhere in the lineup. He was one of the hardest-working players in the organization and quickly became a fan favourite that everyone was rooting for. After three and a half seasons as a regular in Ottawa, the team and player were too far apart on his next deal, and the Senators weren’t willing to let him walk to free agency. He was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning as they set off on another deep playoff run. Paul impressed the Lightning and earned a long-term, low-cost deal of seven years, $22 million.
The Senators received Mathieu Joseph and a 2024 fourth-round pick for Paul. The pick was used on Blake Montgomery, and Joseph was traded to the St. Louis Blues in July 2024, so for now, this branch isn’t over yet. He made a great impression on the Senators scoring 12 points in 11 games to end his first season with Ottawa in 2021-22. Joseph had an underwhelming 2022-23 season as he recorded just three goals and 18 points in 56 games after signing a four-year deal worth just shy of $3 million per season.
The 2015 second-round pick the Senators got from Dallas was used to select MacKenzie Blackwood, but obviously, it wasn’t the Senators that used that pick. The Sens used that pick and a 2016 third-rounder to move up six spots and select Gabriel Gagne. While the team clearly liked him enough to move up the draft to take him, Gagne didn’t pan out and played three AHL seasons with the club before being traded for Morgan Klimchuk in 2019. After only one full AHL season with the Senators, he hung up the skates.
Devils Make the Most of Pick Swap with Senators
Using a third-round pick to move up in a draft is quite common. The Devils happily took the two picks and made their selections, the second-rounder being Blackwood and the other being Joey Anderson. Blackwood was a promising young goalie for the Devils for a while before injuries resulted in him plateauing. He was bought out and eventually signed with the San Jose Sharks in the 2023 offseason.
Anderson was flipped to the Maple Leafs for Andreas Johnsson, who was still a good player, just making too much money for the Leafs. Anderson was mostly an AHL player for the Leafs, playing in 20 NHL games over his four seasons with the club. He was a good depth option to have for an injury call-up but wasn’t making the strides they hoped for. The Leafs used Anderson, as well as Pavel Gogolev, a conditional 2025 first-round pick and a 2026 second-round pick to acquire Sam Lafferty, Jake McCabe, and a pair of fifth-round picks (2024, 2025). While the Leafs did make other moves, this was one of the most pivotal trades they made that resulted in them winning their first playoff round in 19 years.
Gogolev wasn’t re-signed by the Blackhawks, but other than him, most of these assets remain with the two teams and only one of the draft picks have been used – the Maple Leafs used a fifth-round pick on Miroslav Holinka in 2024.
Johnsson became an important piece to the Devils creating one of the best offensive groups in the NHL, but not due to his play. He was used as part of a massive deal between the Sharks and Devils, sending Timo Meier, Scott Harrington, Zacharie Emond, Santeri Hatakka, Timur Ibragimov, and a 2024 fifth-round pick to the Devils and Johnsson, Fabian Zetterlund, Nikita Okhotiuk, Shakir Mukhamidullin, a 2023 first-round pick, a 2024 conditional second-round pick and a 2024 seventh-round pick to the Sharks. This branch is bound to go on for a very long time, but for now, the changes from the original trade were the Sharks selecting Quentin Musty with the first-rounder, and the Devils signing Meier long-term and not signing Emond, Ibragimov or Harrington.
Where This Trade Leaves Us Today
So 23 years after the deal, there has been a lot of movement with all of these assets. The teams involved now have the following players and assets either directly, or in part by the Yashin trade:
Ottawa Senators:
-Mathieu Joseph
-2024 4th Round Pick (TB)
Tampa Bay Lightning:
-Nick Paul
Toronto Maple Leafs:
-Jake McCabe
-Sam Lafferty
-Conditional 2024 5th Round Pick
-Conditional 2025 5th Round Pick
Chicago Blackhawks:
-Joey Anderson
-2025 1st Round Pick (Top-10 Protected)
-2026 2nd Round Pick
New Jersey Devils:
-Timo Meier
-Santeri Hatakka
-2024 5th Round Pick (COL)
San Jose Sharks:
-Shakir Mukhamidullin
-Fabian Zetterlund
-Nikita Okhotiuk
-Quentin Musty
-Conditional 2024 2nd Round Pick (NJD)
-2024 7th Round Pick (NJD)
St. Louis Blues:
-Mathieu Joseph
This tree is certain to continue developing as there are so many players and picks still active. While the Senators and Islanders kicked off this tree, it has gone far beyond their clubs and the Yashin trade will continue in the NHL for years, even decades to come.
