At the time of the Matt Duchene trade, when the Ottawa Senators gave up their 2018 1st round pick to the Colorado Avalanche, it wasn’t perceived to be as big of a deal as it’s become. The Sens’ record of 6-3-5 had them as a top ten team in November, and fresh off an exciting run to the Eastern Conference Final, optimism ran through the fan base for another fantastic season.
As we all know now, everything completely flipped on its head from that point on, finishing second last league-wide and falling back two spots in the lottery to receive the 4th overall pick in Friday’s draft.