The Hamburglar run never happened and Ottawa drafted Connor McDavid instead of Colin White in 2015. Thomas Chabot falls three spots to their pick from Buffalo/NYI. In 2016, Edmonton finished last and drafted Auston Matthews. This doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the scenario, I just wanted to mention it. Ottawa finishes better than they did in our universe in their first year with McDavid (but still miss the playoffs), so they end up missing out on Logan Brown and drafting Charlie McAvoy instead.
The 2017 playoff run still happens except this time, with McDavid and Karlsson, as well as the team being pumped up by Chris Neil and Clarke MacArthur playing, and rallying behind Craig Anderson and his wife, the Sens win the Stanley Cup.
The next season they do not **** the bed, and only get better with Mark Stone, Charlie McAvoy, Ryan Dzingel, and Thomas Chabot all eventually reaching their primes.
We still lose Methot to the expansion draft and hate on Johnny Oduya for a season, but this time around to fix it, Ottawa trades Shane Bowers, Christian Wolanin, and a 1st for Ryan McDonagh as a quick fix, and eventually Chabot is able to keep up with Karlsson to make for the best top pair in the league.
The Mike Hoffman fiasco still happens and he's still traded to San Jose for a bag of pucks, but since we are contending, the Senators opt for Chris Tierney rather than Boedker and Bergman. San Jose still flips Hoffman to Florida.
The Duchene deal never happens so Turris stays in Ottawa to play as 2C behind McDavid. Brassard still needs to be traded to shed cap space so Ottawa still gets Filip Gustavsson from Pittsburgh, and still drafts Jacob Bernard-Docker with their pick.
It's definitely not impossible that we still have the players we drafted in 2019 since we reached for lots of them. For simplicity's sake, they'll all stay the same (it won't really affect much anyways).
When Anderson's contract finishes he retires, and Hogberg, Gustavsson, and Daccord are ready to pick up the slack. Phaneuf is bought out 2-3 years before the end of his contract and Ryan ends up on LTIR from his hands.
Devante Smith-Pelly is signed to play 4th line RW.
These are what Ottawa's lines would look like entering the Seattle expansion draft.
Playing on McDavid's wing, Dzingel becomes a 40 goal scorer. Stone is good for about 100 points, and McDavid is good for 110+. This line is spoken of among Landeskog-Mackinnon-Rantanen and Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak, and is often referred to as the second coming of the pizza line (Heatley-Spezza-Alfredsson).
Now that I think about it, Chabot-Karlsson might be too much offense for one pairing, but the PP would be insane, and McDonagh-Karlsson, Chabot-McAvoy would be sick as well.
Since cap space would be tight, Pageau and Tierney would be first to go, with Chlapik and likely Nick Paul taking their places. Any other fourth line plug would be signed to take his spot until Shane Pinto could move him back. McAvoy would have to go next unfortunately once Lassi Thompson could take his spot. McDonagh wouldn't be far behind once Tychonick is ready.
Hard to imagine this as their team. I think you are a bit too confident giving Batherson, Gustavsson and Hogberg those contracts, but otherwise this illustrates how small motions make a long lasting impact
Not going to go into useless arguments about would and wouldn’t happen because of this, but I love posts like this that change just one event in history. Butterfly effect.
Hard to imagine this as their team. I think you are a bit too confident giving Batherson, Gustavsson and Hogberg those contracts, but otherwise this illustrates how small motions make a long lasting impact
With the year Batherson had last year, I could definitely see him becoming a top 6 forward in the next few years. Hogberg looks to be pretty much NHL ready, so backup money isn't out of the question for him. Gustavsson I agree is a little ambitious, but he's projected as a starter, and this would be low-end starter money nowadays.
With the year Batherson had last year, I could definitely see him becoming a top 6 forward in the next few years. Hogberg looks to be pretty much NHL ready, so backup money isn't out of the question for him. Gustavsson I agree is a little ambitious, but he's projected as a starter, and this would be low-end starter money nowadays.
All probably will get bridge deals unless they greatly impress
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