In what felt like an endless night of bizarre celebrity cameo appearances, odd one-liners from Gary Bettman, awkward interviews with shell-shocked teenage hockey players and poorly timed technical issues, the Sens seemingly came away with pretty interesting prospect.
Logan Hensler is an Ottawa Senator.
As the dust settled on night one of the NHL Entry Draft, the consensus seems to be that the Senators did pretty well for themselves. In Hensler, the Senators are getting an 18-year old American-born right shot defenceman that has good size and skates like the wind. While his offensive numbers don’t exactly jump off the page after his first year at the University of Wisconsin, most people seem to agree that he has room to grow in that part of the game. Brock Faber was being thrown around as a comparable for Hensler.
“A toolsy play-killer who steadily improved through the season. An easy projection to the NHL and there’s more offence to give”, according to Elite Prospects. Works for me.
Maybe what’s most reassuring thing about the Hensler selection is the Senators seemed to be going with the consensus. Hensler appeared as high as 10th overall on pre-draft lists and settled in at 15th on Bob McKenzie’s list. So when the Senators took him at 23rd overall, all the self-proclaimed Draft experts seemed to be in agreement that Ottawa got pretty good value for that pick. Even more so when you consider they were able to add an additional 3rd round pick by mashing the novelty trade button and moving back a couple spots in Round One.
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from years of following the Draft it’s that nobody has any freaking idea though. It’s fun to pretend and it’s fun to banter back and forth about what these kids might turn into one day but we really don’t know. The real work for Hensler and everyone else drafted on a long Friday night in Los Angeles starts now. But it seems like a pretty good starting point.
Also, Tom Green was there.
The Senators will pick six more times on Saturday including 67th, 96th, 97th, 149th, 181st and 213th.
