Ottawa Senators Made the Right Decision Keeping Erik Karlsson

The Ottawa Senators made a wise decision by not trading captain Erik Karlsson at the NHL trade deadline

The Ottawa Senators avoided catastrophe when they decided not to trade Erik Karlsson prior to the NHL’s trade deadline. In what would have been a move worthy of folding the franchise, the Senators made a potential future-saving decision by keeping Karlsson.

Now Ottawa has bought itself enough time to plan for ways to improve the club for next season and salvage the relationship with one of the best players in franchise history.

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The Senators have dramatically fallen in less than a year removed from being a goal away in overtime to the Stanley Cup Finals. Nobody could have predicted at the end of Ottawa’s playoff run how drastically different the club would look just months later.

Gone from that team are some of the biggest reasons for last year’s success with the likes of Marc Methot, Kyle Turris, Dion Phaneuf, and Derick Brassard. Had the Senators added Karlsson to that list, the franchise likely never would have recovered.

Ottawa couldn’t sell out their building despite going on the second-best playoff run in franchise history. It’s hard to imagine the few fans that did attend those games would have any interest in returning after the loss of so many fan favorites, not to mention the most talented player in franchise history.

Now the Senators have one last chance to right the ship and return next season ready to compete for a playoff spot. The remaining nucleus of the club isn’t as good as the one that started the season but it isn’t as bad as some may think. However, another issue Ottawa will face is the club can’t afford to be worse next season given the team won’t have their 2019 first-round draft pick.

In the deal that brought Matt Duchene to the Senators, Ottawa traded a first-round pick with the option to choose whether it’d be for the 2018 draft or the 2019 draft. Given the Senators are likely to have a top-five pick in 2018, the club will hang onto it and surrender their 2019 first-round pick to the Colorado Avalanche.

However, if Ottawa continues to strip down their roster and trades Karlsson in the summer then they are likely handing the Avalanche a top-five overall pick in next year’s draft. Therefore, Ottawa must repair their relationship with Karlsson as the team would hit rock bottom if they lost Karlsson and a 2019 top-five overall draft pick.

The good news for Ottawa is the team has pieces to build around so getting Karlsson to buy back in shouldn’t be as hard as some make it out to be. Duchene and Mike Hoffman have begun developing chemistry on the ice. Thomas Chabot is coming into his own as an everyday player in the league. Cody Ceci and Mark Stone are still in their early 20s with the potential to continue to evolve as players. There are even quality support players like Zack Smith, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and Ryan Dzingel.

Even though the Senators spent the last three months selling off players, there’s still a lot to like about the team’s future. There are decent prospects rising through the system like Logan Brown, Colin White, and Drake Batherson. The team will add another exciting prospect in June with their first-round pick. All the club needs is to find a way to get the centerpiece of the franchise locked-in long term.

Next: How Each NHL Team Could Trade For Erik Karlsson

The 2017-18 season will always go down as a terrible year for the Senators but there’s no reason it has to go down as the worst year in franchise history. Ottawa took a step in the right direction by keeping Karlsson at the trade deadline and now they need to find a way to keep him in a Senators jersey for years to come.

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