Wouldn’t be easy for the Senators to trade a top pick, but they could move some others
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet: Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion on trading down from No. 3 and/or No. 5.
“It would be very difficult to do something like that,” he answered. “It would have to be a special player coming our way.”
Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun: The 2020 NHL draft could be held around October 9th and 15th if all goes as planned. Loaded with 13 draft picks, Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion will be busy working the phones leading up to the draft.
They could have three picks in the first round and another four in the second. It’s unlikely they would use all seven picks, so look for them to move or back or trade the picks for players.
TSN’s Craig Button said that the Senators will have plenty of salary cap space for the next two years and they have an opportunity to take advantage of that.
“Teams are going to have to find a way to be cap compliant so there’s opportunity and how do they do that?
“Trading players for a pick. Ottawa can say we’ll take that player, we’ve got some cap space, and you can have a second-round pick. The cap management, prospect management and where the roster is at, you’d like to check every box and I don’t want to be overly critical about the goaltender but that’s the box they’ve got to find a way to check.”
Pilut wanted a one-way deal and the Sabres may not have offered until it was too late
Lance Lysowski of the Buffalo News: Buffalo Sabres 24-year defenseman Lawrence Pilut signed a two-year contract with Traktor Chelyabinsk of the KHL earlier this month. Pilut wouldn’t discuss details of what was said during his camps talks with Sabres then management team.
Multiple sources have said that Pilut was looking for a one-way deal and then GM Jason Botterill wasn’t interested in that. Sources said that it wasn’t until after Pilut signed in the KHL that the Sabres offered a one-way deal.
“Obviously we had a couple conversations,” said Pilut, who signed with the Sabres in May 2018. “I don’t really want to get into too much details, but I started to lean toward the KHL and made my decision to go there. It felt good for me.”