Penguins, Senators Discussed First-Round Pick At Draft

Although it didn’t amount to anything, a resurfaced video of Ottawa Senators General Manager Steve Staios 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.

Obviously, it’s anyone’s best guess as to who the roster player would have been. On the flip side, it’s far more obvious who the Penguins were trading up for. Pittsburgh had already drafted forward Liam Ruck with the 22nd overall pick, and it wasn’t a secret that they were also targeting his brother, Marcus Ruck. Regardless, the Penguins eventually drafted Marcus, who fell to the 39th overall pick.

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’s fairly easy to wittle the list down.

Due to value or trade protection, the Penguins have several players they wouldn’t trade for a late first-round pick. Sidney Crosby, Bryan Rust, Rickard Rakell, Egor Chinakhov, Benjamin Kindel, Evgeni Malkin, Erik Karlsson, and Kris Letang all fall into that category. It’s difficult to determine what Staios means by a ‘roster player’ in the video. However, it’s improbable that Ville Koivunen, Rutger McGroarty, or Harrison Brunicke would fit this description, as they finished the 2025-26 season in the AHL.

Two remaining players on the roster could realistically hold value equivalent to a late first-round pick: Thomas Novak and Justin Brazeau. As a natural center, Novak wouldn’t 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.

Still, Brazeau would have made a lot of sense for the Senators. He’s 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 André Burakovsky from the Chicago Blackhawks, proving that it was a priority of the team’s to add more scoring depth on the wing.