The Ottawa Senators have developed a reputation as a team that will give struggling players a second chance. Some of that has been out of necessity. As a rebuilding team, the Senators have struggled to attract top free-agent talent, and even if they could, their previous owner had a controversial reputation, to put it nicely. That led to a lot of turnover, and as the rebuild lagged on, Ottawa had to take what it could get, which often came in the form of underperforming players looking for a second chance. Thankfully, it worked out on more than a few occasions. Anthony Duclair became a 20-goal scorer again, Mike Reilly emerged as a reliable 20-point defender, and Craig Anderson proved that he could be one of the best goalies in the NHL.
The Senators continued that trend in the 2023-24 offseason, moving Egor Sokolov to the Utah Hockey Club and Roby Jarventie to the Edmonton Oilers for Jan Jenik and Xavier Bourgault, respectively. Both moves seemed promising, but came with tinges of doubt – are the Senators giving up on these players too soon? Here are four players that the Senators probably wish they held on to a little longer.
Mika Zibanejad
Arguably the most infamous trade in recent memory, on July 18, 2016, the Senators shipped off a 22-year-old Mika Zibanejad and a 2018 second-round pick to the New York Rangers for a 28-year-old Derick Brassard and a 2018 seventh-rounder. The deal was criticized from day one and looked incredibly unbalanced. Zibanejad was younger and already a two-time 20-goal scorer, whereas Brassard had just one 20-plus-goal season under his belt over his 10-year career, which came in 2015-16. The draft picks made it seem even more unbalanced. But there was at least some rhyme to the reason. “We felt Mika has great potential down the road,” said general manager Pierre Dorion. “We felt with Derick we were getting someone that’s more proven, a better hockey player at this point in time. Our ultimate goal is to make the playoffs again and we think Derick’s going to help us make the playoffs.”
Unfortunately, Senators fans know exactly how that turned out. While the Senators managed to make the playoffs in 2016-17 and nearly sent home the Pittsburgh Penguins in the conference final, not a lot of it was due to Brassard. The experienced forward put up just 14 goals and 39 points in 81 games, placing him fifth in team scoring. The following season, he dipped to 38 points and although his goals increased to 18, he only played 58 games before he was flipped to the Penguins via the Vegas Golden Knights in a three-way deal that landed Ottawa a measly third-round pick.
Zibanejad struggled somewhat in his first season in the Big Apple, scoring 37 points in 57 games, but since then, he’s never dipped below 24 goals in a season and in 2022-23, he scored 91 points. Although the Senators may not have had the money to sign their 2011 sixth-round pick long-term, it’s hard not to wonder if Ottawa would have been a perennial playoff contender with him still in their lineup.
Pavol Demitra
In 1993-94, the Senators brought in a 19-year-old Slovak forward named Pavol Demitra, who they had selected in the ninth round of the 1993 Draft. He had strong numbers in Czechia’s top league the season prior, and in his first game in North America, he scored a goal in a 7-5 loss to the St. Louis Blues. However, despite a positive showing, the Senators didn’t think he was quite ready for the NHL, so they sent him down to the American Hockey League (AHL) in the middle of October.
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He played 11 more NHL games that season, plus another 47 over the next two seasons, and by 1995-96, he was starting to show off some decent offensive potential. In 31 NHL games, he had seven goals and 17 points. In the AHL, however, he was a monster, scoring 72 goals and 196 points in just 150 games. But, on Nov. 27, 1996, the Senators traded him to the Blues for Swedish defender Christer Olsson. While Olsson only played 25 games with the Senators before heading back to Sweden, Demitra became one of the Blues’ best players, leading the team with 37 goals and 89 points in 1998-99 and recording a career-high 93 points in 2002-03. Only Alexei Yashin scored more than 80 points in a single season in that same span. With Demitra, maybe Ottawa could have finally beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in the playoffs.
Demitra tragically passed away in the Yaroslavl Locomotiv plane crash in 2011, but was still inducted into the St. Louis Blues Hall of Fame in 2023.
Martin Straka
The Senators of the early 1990s were a mess. They won a combined 24 games across their first two seasons in the NHL mostly due to the efforts of a bunch of scrappy veterans. That helped them accumulate several high-profile prospects in Yashin, Alexandre Daigle, and Radek Bonk, but what were they to do with their current group? One option – trade them for more young players. So, on April 7, 1995, the Senators traded former leading scorer Norm Maciver and aging tough guy Troy Murray to the Penguins for a 21-year-old Martin Straka. He had scored 30 goals and 64 points the season before, but after 31 games in 1994-95, he had just 16 points and looked like that one good season may have been a flash in the pan. Still, the Senators were willing to take that risk for the price of two declining veterans.
Straka had some promising moments in Ottawa, but he also had some long scoring droughts, which opened up the potential of moving the 22-year-old. That ended up coming much sooner than likely expected; the Senators were struggling with their 1995 first-overall selection Bryan Berard, who had requested a trade following a frustrating training camp and looking for solutions.
That solution ended up being the New York Islanders, who offered the 1995 second-overall pick, Wade Redden, along with goalie Damian Rhodes, for Berard, goalie Don Beaupre, and Straka. It was the perfect fix for Ottawa, who got a massive upgrade in net and a top-pairing defender on their blue line. Straka bounced around before returning to Pittsburgh in 1997-98, and in his second stint with the team, he was much more consistent, scoring 83 points in 1998-99 and 95 in 2000-01. Although the Senators shouldn’t regret the trade for a second, it’s interesting to wonder how Straka would have fared if given a bit more time.
Nick Paul
By 26 years old, most players have become who they are going to be in the NHL. For Nick Paul, that looked like a reliable but limited middle-six forward. The winger, who was acquired as part of the Jason Spezza trade in 2014, had slowly come through the Senators’ system and emerged as a solid 20-point player. He was a strong forechecker and puck retriever, and at 6-foot-4, he had NHL size, but it didn’t look like he’d become much more than that. So, when it came time to negotiate his contract extension, his camp wasn’t impressed with what Ottawa was offering, leading to a stalemate.
With no end in sight, the Senators decided to flip him for a similar player, sending Paul and a 2024 fourth-round pick to the Tampa Bay Lightning for Mathieu Joseph, with Ottawa retaining 50% of his salary. Joseph was also having trouble negotiating a contract in Tampa Bay, and with more speed, there was a chance to give him some looks on the Senators’ top line. Both players were much happier in their new locales and ironically signed similar contract extensions; Joseph inked a four-year, $11.8 million deal at $2.95 million per season, while Paul signed a seven-year, $22.05 million contract, working out to $3.15 million per season.
However, after a strong start that saw Joseph score 11 points in 12 games, he struggled in 2022-23, scoring just 18 points in 56 games. The following season was better with a 35-point performance, but at nearly $3 million a season, it was getting tougher to justify his place on the cap-strapped roster and was traded during the 2023-24 offseason for future considerations. Paul, on the other hand, had a similarly hot start with the Lightning, scoring 14 points in 21 games, but he followed that up with a 32-point season in 2022-23 and 24 goals and 46 points in 2023-24. Had the Senators just bitten the bullet in 2022, they could have prevented trading away a late-bloomer who could have solidified their weaker bottom six.
Who Will Join This List in the Future?
It’s always tricky to know how a young player will develop, and it’s even trickier to figure out how long to wait for them to become the player they were projected to be. Will Jarventie and Sokolov be the next players to join this list? Neither had much of a chance with Ottawa but could thrive with better opportunities on their current clubs. The only consolation is if Jenik and Bourgault will make other teams wonder if they gave up on their young players too soon.
