Physical, mobile, and long-term upside. As I reviewed information on the Ottawa Senators’ selections from the 2021 NHL Draft, those are the themes that stood out.
I have a lot of respect for the work of scouts. It’s often a thankless job with a ridiculous day-to-day grind and very few immediate rewards, if any. The last few years have been an exception to the latter in Ottawa, as the ‘rebuild’ amplified the importance of the organization’s amateur scouts and multiple top-five picks, including Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stützle, jumped straight into the NHL. Usually, though, questioning how we feel about the players picked is the norm, and the Senators returned to that in 2021.