{"id":854256,"date":"2026-08-13T22:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T22:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/854256\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T22:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T22:18:08","slug":"penguins-senators-discussed-first-round-pick-at-draft-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/854256\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins, Senators Discussed First-Round Pick At Draft \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although it didn\u2019t amount to anything, a resurfaced video<\/a> of Ottawa Senators General Manager Steve Staios<\/a> in the NHL Draft war room suggests the Pittsburgh Penguins offered an unknown roster player for the 25th overall pick. Additionally, at the beginning of the video, Staios is receiving a trade call that includes the 33rd and 41st overall picks, both owned by the Vancouver Canucks.<\/p>\n

Obviously, it\u2019s anyone\u2019s best guess as to who the roster player would have been. On the flip side, it\u2019s far more obvious who the Penguins were trading up for. Pittsburgh had already drafted forward Liam Ruck<\/a> with the 22nd overall pick, and it wasn\u2019t a secret that they were also targeting his brother, Marcus Ruck<\/a>. Regardless, the Penguins eventually drafted Marcus, who fell to the 39th overall pick.<\/p>\n

Regardless, it leads to some fun speculation as to whom Pittsburgh would consider offering. Assuming the trade was straight up and there were no other picks involved in the deal, it\u2019s fairly easy to wittle the list down.<\/p>\n

Due to value or trade protection, the Penguins have several players they wouldn\u2019t trade for a late first-round pick. Sidney Crosby<\/a>, Bryan Rust<\/a>, Rickard Rakell<\/a>, Egor Chinakhov<\/a>, Benjamin Kindel<\/a>, Evgeni Malkin<\/a>, Erik Karlsson<\/a>, and Kris Letang<\/a> all fall into that category. It\u2019s difficult to determine what Staios means by a \u2018roster player\u2019 in the video. However, it\u2019s improbable that Ville Koivunen<\/a>, Rutger McGroarty<\/a>, or Harrison Brunicke<\/a> would fit this description, as they finished the 2025-26 season in the AHL.<\/p>\n

Two remaining players on the roster could realistically hold value equivalent to a late first-round pick: Thomas Novak<\/a> and Justin Brazeau<\/a>. As a natural center, Novak wouldn\u2019t have fit an obvious need for the Senators, even at the time. Although he recently signed a three-year extension with the Penguins, Pittsburgh may have been considering an extension or exploring trade options for him to see which could have benefited them more.<\/p>\n

Still, Brazeau would have made a lot of sense for the Senators. He\u2019s on an affordable $1.5MM cap hit for the 2026-27 season, is coming off a season in which he scored 17 goals and 34 points in 64 games, and would have immediately become the biggest forward with Ottawa. The Senators eventually acquired Andr\u00e9 Burakovsky from the Chicago Blackhawks, proving that it was a priority of the team\u2019s to add more scoring depth on the wing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although it didn\u2019t amount to anything, a resurfaced video of Ottawa Senators General Manager Steve Staios in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,7322,6597,4785,85],"class_list":["post-854256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-draft","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}