Skip to content
Your daily dose of hockey
News

Penalty for the Dadonov saga: Ottawa may try to take advantage of a loophole
Kevin Vallée
Penalty for the Dadonov saga: Ottawa may try to take advantage of a loophole
Credit: Getty Images
The Senators had their fingers rapped in 2023 after the long and bizarre Evgenii Dadonov saga.

In 2021, Ottawa traded the Russian to Vegas without providing its list of teams to which he would refuse to be traded. Then, in 2022, the Golden Knights tried to shipper him to the Anaheim Ducks at the trade deadline… But the NHL revoked the transaction, for this reason. A year later, the League ruled that Pierre Dorion and the Sens were to blame for the lack of communication.

In a nutshell. Do you follow?

As punishment, Ottawa had to forfeit one of its next three first-round picks. In 2024, they kept him – rightly so – as they selected Carter Yakemchuk at No. 7…

Except that the Sens seem to have decided to keep their 2025 draft pick, which will be 21st overall. According to PuckPedia, they were supposed to notify the league offices within 24 hours of the draft lottery, which doesn’t appear to have been done.

This is peculiar, as the 2025 vintage has the reputation of not being very “deep”, while we hear that the 2026 vintage will be very interesting.

However, there’s a popular theory that Ottawa is hoping for an “Ilya Kovalchuk”-style conclusion, in the days when the Devils received identical punishment for attempting to offer the Russian a 17-year contract that the NHL called a “salary bypass”.

Lou Lamoriello waited until the final year, then the League gave in. Rather than lose a first-round pick, the Devils received the 30th overall.

Was a precedent set? Maybe so… And Ottawa would be right to try… It’s more than a precedent, when such a penalty is so infrequent – it’s downright a loophole.


Overtime

– Sven… Andrighetto…

– Sam Gagner takes the plunge.

– The definition of “learning to lose”.

facebook icon Share twitter icon Tweet linkedin icon Share
Copied!
More Content