Senators talks with NCC to finalize LeBreton Flats purchase ‘making some progress’

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The Senators’ current home, the Canadian Tire Centre, took four years to plan and 18 months to build. It opened in early 1996.

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“It’s going to be a process to get there,” Leeder said. “I hesitate to put a time frame on it because there are so many variables. We don’t know when construction is going to start. Once construction starts, within a few months I could give fans a (date) on when the building will open.

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“Right now, we’re not at the point where we could accurately predict when we’re going to get there.”

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Staios and Leeder were both asked a wide range of questions. Still, Ian Mendes, the Senators’ vice-president of communications, noted that many wanted to find out if the organization might be able to recoup the first-round draft pick it was ordered to surrender by the NHL because of the botched Evgenii Dadonov deal.

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Owner Michael Andlauer is trying to practise patience, hoping that commissioner Gary Bettman will relent. Staios returned from the NHL GM meetings in Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday, but clearly wasn’t given any indication by that Bettman would change his mind.

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“Is there always some hope? Yes, but we’re not planning on it. The ruling came down and we’re going to live by that,” Staios said.

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President of hockey operations and GM Steve Staios says the club is still working under the assumption it will have to surrender a first-round draft pick in either 2025 or 2026. Photo by Jean Levac /POSTMEDIAArticle content

Staois was also asked what the thought process is in determining when the organization might choose to surrender the pick because it must happen in either 2025 or 2026.

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“Trying to determine the best time to do it, whether it’s this year or next, we’ll do an extensive study on the draft,” Staios said. “The amateur scouts are hard at work trying to predict and project this draft.

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“There will come a point where we will see where we’ve landed and look at the talent pool in and around there. There are a number of factors that will come into determining when we will relinquish that first-round pick.”

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The biggest deal Staios made at the March 8 trade deadline involved sending centre Josh Norris to the Buffalo Sabres for Dylan Cozens, but he did make another trade and on Thursday made some interesting comments about that one.

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The last-minute deal to acquire winger Fabian Zetterlund from the San Jose Sharks was completed only 27 seconds before the 3 p.m. deadline.

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Staios said he had been working on a bigger deal with the Sharks — which would presumably centred around Norris — that would have brought Zetterlund back in return, but opted to revisit that trade after Norris was dealt for Dylan Cozens.

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Norris was drafted by the Sharks at No. 19 overall in 2017 and was part of the Erik Karlsson trade with the Senators in 2018.

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“We had some traction in San Jose and it started to look like it could have become a bigger deal, but Zetterlund was a component of it,” Staios said. “After I made the Dylan Cozens deal, I revisited that and continued with the (discussions) on Fabian.”

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