Three Trade Proposals For The Ottawa Senators To Consider This Offseason
Before I begin this article I’d like to thank everyone for reading my work and if you enjoy this content please take a minute to sign up for a free subscription using the link below and comment with your thoughts!
The Ottawa Senators have begun their extensive offseason work with the much anticipated Colin White buyout. He will enter free agency and will cost the Senators $875,000 annually for the next six years. With that order of business out of the way general manager Pierre Dorion is free to make additional moves.
The Senators are expected to be active in the coming weeks and months and many rumours have been swirling about what those moves might entail. I have come up with three trade proposals that the Sens should be considering to improve the team.
Connor Brown To A Contender
It’s no secret that Connor Brown is determined to test free agency once his contract is over. It’s also no secret that it’s unlikely the Sens will or should match his demands. He could rightfully ask for a $5 million AAV on his next deal and I don’t think the Sens are prepared to pay that for him.
Coupled with the fact that Ottawa is pursuing a productive winger to improve the offence, Brown could be a valuable part of a potential trade package. The 28-year-old winger scored 10 goals and 39 points in 64 games this year for one of the most productive seasons of his career.
Brown plays well in all aspects of the game including the power play and penalty kill. He led all Senators forwards in ice-time this year, playing over 20 minutes per night. The former Toronto Maple Leaf will definitely be in high demand during trade talks.
He will likely garner a similar return to what Blake Coleman got when he was traded from New Jersey to Tampa. Coleman had 31 points in 57 games when he was traded for a recent first-round pick (Nolan Foote) and a future first-round pick (Shakir Mukhamadullin).
Connor Brown’s 39 points in 64 games are very similar to Coleman’s production at the time of his trade. There’s no reason his trade return shouldn’t be similar as well. It is reasonable to expect the Sens to net a first-round pick and a prospect.
Nikita Zaitsev To Arizona
The writing has been on the wall for a while but now it is clear as day that Nikita Zaitsev’s time in Ottawa is drawing to a close. Zaitsev has been producing effectively zero offence and questionable defence for a few years now. The only question now is where will he go and how much will it cost to offload him?
The Sens have recently paid the $2 million signing bonus to Zaitsev which means that any team that trades for him will only have to pay him $2.5 million in real money this year. This will certainly make a difference in his future trade similar to the way it helped him come to Ottawa in the first place.
The Arizona Coyotes come to mind as the most likely destination for Zaitsev. They won’t be anywhere near the playoffs at any point in the next two years and they have so much cap space they actually need to reach the floor. Now, that doesn’t mean they’ll give away cap space for free but they would have some interest in him.
The cost for offloading the $9 million cap hit and $7 million real dollars of Zaitsev’s contract can be anywhere from a pair of 2nd round picks to a 3rd round pick. The cap dump trade market will decide that.
Trading Zaitsev is perhaps the most important decision in this offseason aside from the Josh Norris contract extension. This move is addition by subtraction and will go a long way to upgrade the Senators’ defence.
Sonny Milano
I bet none of you reading this expected an Anaheim Ducks winger on this list. In all the rumours surrounding the Senators, few have suggested the potential of a Milano trade to Ottawa.
Sonny Milano is a 26-year-old winger who had the best season of his career in 2021-22. He is currently an RFA and if contract talks with the Ducks don’t go as smoothly as they would like the team might consider trading him. Milano scored 14 goals this year and 34 points in 66 games played.
He began the season on a tear with new linemate Troy Terry. That didn’t last all season, however, as he finished the season in a slump. This prevented him from gaining his place as a legitimate top-six winger this year.
While Milano is certainly not on the top of Pierre Dorion’s list but if he misses out on some of the bigger names, Milano would be an enticing consolation prize. The asking price could be anything really but I’d expect it to be either a similar player or a decent prospect/pick.
As the Senators don’t have any plans to laterally move Mathieu Joseph or Alex Formenton right now, it will likely come down to the second option. If the Senators are serious about trading for Milano they could offer Roby Jarventie as a one-for-one deal.
Milano would fit in well with the Senators’ forward group, likely alternating between top-six and top-nine roles.
Image Credit: Rich Lam/Getty Images