Ottawa's 2020 Draft Class Keeps on Giving
Ottawa's 2020 NHL Draft haul was the kind of rebuild moment that Senators fans had been waiting years for — and it just got even sweeter. According to a new feature from The Hockey News, even the last pick Ottawa selected in that famous draft has now cemented himself as a legitimate NHL regular.
For a class already celebrated as one of the most productive in recent league history, that's a remarkable statement. It means the Senators didn't just land franchise players at the top — they found usable NHL talent all the way to the bottom of their selections.
A Draft That Defined a Rebuild
The 2020 draft was a turning point for the Senators organization. Coming off years of painful rebuilding — and a roster stripped bare through trades — Ottawa leveraged accumulated draft capital into one of the deepest single-draft hauls any team had pulled off in years.
Tim Stützle, selected third overall, quickly became the cornerstone of the new-look Senators. The dynamic centre developed into a legitimate first-line NHL forward and one of the most exciting young players in the league. Alongside him, Ottawa used multiple picks to stockpile depth across positions and rounds.
Jake Sanderson, taken fifth overall, has grown into one of the better young defencemen in the NHL, anchoring Ottawa's blueline with a two-way game that belies his age. The early-round picks alone would have made 2020 a success story. But the real jaw-dropping part of this draft class is just how far the talent stretched.
Depth That Goes All the Way Down
In most drafts, late-round picks are lottery tickets — organizational depth guys who might crack an AHL lineup on a good day. For Ottawa in 2020, the story has been entirely different. The Hockey News highlights that even the final pick the Senators made in that draft is now playing regular NHL hockey — a testament to the scouting staff's work and the club's ability to develop prospects into genuine contributors.
That kind of top-to-bottom production from a single draft class is extremely rare. For a franchise that spent years enduring the painful side of a tank-and-rebuild cycle, it's validation that the process actually worked.
What It Means for the Senators' Future
The depth of the 2020 class gives the Senators options. Players who came up through the organization together tend to develop chemistry and culture, and Ottawa now has multiple draft-class teammates competing at the NHL level — many of them still in their early-to-mid twenties.
For Senators fans in Ottawa, this kind of news is fuel for optimism. The team is no longer just waiting to be competitive — it is competitive, built largely on the backbone of one historic draft. And with even the last pick contributing at the top level, the argument that 2020 was Ottawa's defining draft moment grows stronger by the season.
When the full story of this Senators rebuild is written someday, 2020 will be chapter one.
Source: The Hockey News via Google News Sens RSS
