Ottawa Senators Draft Recap 2025

Ottawa Senators Draft Recap 2025

Ottawa. Oh boy. Hello Ottawa Senators fans. We meet again. It’s possibly been a while and I’m going to be very nice today because the Ottawa Senators did a really good job in my opinion in this year’s draft class. Starting things off with Logan Hensler at 23. I had Hensler as my second ranked defenseman this year behind Matthew Schaefer. I really liked Logan Hensler over the course of this season. I thought he looked pretty shaky in the first half of the year or so, adjusting to NCAA style of hockey. His World Junior I felt was a little bit lackluster. But in the time since the new year, I feel like Hensler has really turned a corner and really regained a level of stability to his game that I really like. If he wants to lean a little more offensively at a given time, he’s perfectly capable of doing so, and I would love to see more of that. But he is also a very mobile player with some really good size and a physical intensity that I think is growing, but maybe not really where it needs to be to be successful. But I believe in what he sort of brings and the intensity level and how he plays the game. Hensler’s a player with really good pass vision as well. He’d rim the puck around the boards in his own end to what I felt would be absolutely nobody and there was someone wide open at the red line once the puck wraps around the whole way and it’s pinpoint accurate all the way around the boards and then you have yourself a really nice creative breakout. Now, I’m not saying that’s like a hallmark of his game, but it’s one example of something where he was better than I kind of expected based on what I was seeing. There’s a nice blank slate player here. I’m always a little bit hesitant about players, especially defensemen, who are these advertised as good at everything and not great at a thing type players. And I feel like Hensler, though, is a player like that that I think does actually bring some good abilities in a lot of areas that could work in the NHL. So, this is a type of player where I could see if you need him to do a certain thing on an NHL team in order to make himself have a job, he will be capable of doing it, and that’s why I like this pick at this point. It’s a little later than I thought he would go, but I think this is a really interesting pickup for Ottawa that nicely complements the type of defenseman that they already have on the team. At 93rd overall in this year’s draft, the Ottawa Senators surprised I think a lot of people like me by drafting Blake Vanic, son of NHLer Thomas Vanic. I did like what I saw of Blake Vanic this season. Now granted, I didn’t see a whole lot generally based on principle. I don’t really trust Minnesota high school hockey looking at NHL level players, but Vanic in the USHL for the Chicago Steel this year did showcase a lot of intriguing potential. He’s not small, but he’s energetic. He’s got some physical tools as well. He’s got some good skill and just a really good northbound player that I think plays a lot like some of these guys that Ottawa has drafted over the years. Vanic is one of these guys that I think is going to maybe need to learn a little bit of that consistent intensity, shift by shift output. That is a tough thing to learn, I think, but I just don’t think he’s been tested as much as he could considering his skill and offensive abilities. Then they drafted Lucas Beckman at 97th. And Beckman is very young for this year’s draft class. Not a humongous goalender, but drove really good results. And at the under8 teams, when called upon, when Jack Ivan Kovic wasn’t playing, Beckman played really, really well. The competition level there was not great, but there’s nothing really that works against Lucas Beckman’s numbers or history or anything that would indicate that this is a waste of a pick on a goalie. Again, goalenders are strange. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but considering his youth and his track record, I’m not against it. At 149th, the Ottawa Senators did something that I’m pretty sure they have not done in about a decade and a half, which is draft a Russian player playing in Russia, and that is Dmitri Isaiv of Abto Yakarinberg. Now, this is a guy that really didn’t strike me as an Ottawa Senator style player. But I think back over the last few years and the Ottawa Senators have drafted some of these smallerish skill first type guys and it’s just not really at the forefront of their prospect pipeline. And with Dmitri Isaiv, I like what I saw. I do think that the physicality of higher level hockey might be a little bit too much for him. He doesn’t quite have the skill level right now, I think, to problem solve that really high-end talent. I don’t think he quite has the skating ability, the explosiveness, the top speed to really play his style of play at higher levels, but boy is this ever a fun player to watch. He’s a pretty aggressive player from time to time. He’s got really, really good skill. I don’t want to come off by saying there’s no skill whatsoever in his game. He knows how to handle the puck really well. He’s got a pretty quick release that he is more than happy to use from all over the offensive zone. So, I think there will be things that need to be ironed out in ESV’s game, but I think that in terms of a long-term bet out of Russia, and at this range of the draft, I’m not surprised at all that a team took a swing. I am just a little bit surprised that it was the Ottawa Senators. But this is a fun pick, an upside bet, I think, with a very, very low floor. But there’s definitely a really, really fun player here that I will be really interested to see develop in the Ottawa Senators pipeline over the next little while. Then all the way at 181st, almost 100 picks later, they drafted a re-entry. One of my boys from Croatia, Bruno Idzon. Now, I have been watching Bruno Idz since he was 16 and a really intriguing player over in Sweden. I remember watching him last year once he moved to Malmo and his game just didn’t really develop all that much. And I felt the pace of his game kind of slowed down a little bit. His ability to move the puck to linemates was a real limiting factor for his offense and he just didn’t have that defensive ability that really sort of seemed to be able to complement and raise the floor of his game. Then he went to the Lincoln Stars this year and absolutely lit up the USHL and was a huge part of why Lincoln had such a successful year this year. I don’t know if I’d buy NHL upside with Idon. I think he’s a player that’s more of a complimentary offensive piece, a finisher, more of an offensive zone focused player because I just didn’t really trust the skating ability or the puck control up the ice or managing breakouts and running play up the ice himself. He just wasn’t that type of a focal point. But as a complimentary scoring forward that can finish really well, find open space off the puck, and just drive decent offensive results when he’s surrounded with the right players, then I think there could be something with Idzon. You leave him in college, I would say, for about as long as you can, and you see what comes out of his game. There were people talking about him as a top 100 pick this year, and I could see the logic behind that. So, getting him at 181st, I’m really happy for this one because I’ve liked it on for a while. I was really impressed by his play with Lincoln, but it still didn’t really cross that level of put him on the list style of hockey. But I’m really happy because I am always a fan of these guys from lesserk known hockey nations getting as big a platform as they can because it is so great to see more nations being competitive in hockey. And if Bruno Idzon moves the needle in the right direction for Croatians, I’m all for it. Good for him. Good for the Senators for taking a chance on him. And we’ll see where it goes. And then at 213th, they drafted Ivan Trafimov who’s a goalender who is another re-entry from Medall Magnetoorsk’s junior team. And I’m not a goalending expert, but I was actually watching him last night in preparation for this. I’ve been procrastinating watching the goalies to be perfectly honest with you. Tropham looks pretty good. Like this guy can ball. I think his numbers were really, really good this year for a reason. Sometimes, especially at that level of hockey, goalenders can just take up a lot of room and not be the most athletic guys around and shut them out one night and then get blown out by a really good team the next night. But Tropham is pretty good. I think there could be something here with him. Really athletic, really mobile in the crease, tracks play really, really well, sticks with rebounds really well, and just stops a lot of pucks. But of all the goalenders I’ve watched since the draft, maybe it’s recency bias because this was last night, but Tropham does seem like a good one. I think he’s a player that will take steps up the ladder with a pretty good KHL program. I imagine he’s maybe a VHL goalender this coming season and you never know what goes from there. So to pick him up with one of the last picks in the draft and if other people had seen Tropham and were like, you know what, we’ve got enough smaller wingers, we got enough centers, we got enough defenseman, let’s take a goalie now and Tropham was one that people were pushing for, I’d be all for it. I really liked what I saw of him. So for the Ottawa Senators here, I think a strong 2A is where they fall. I think there were some bigger upside swings they could have taken than a Logan Hensler, but that’s no disrespect to Logan Hensler. He is a strong, strong, capable defenseman that I think could turn into at least a solid minutes eater in the NHL. Even if he’s not the most flashy guy around, tall, physical, but really skilled and mobile guy. I could see that pretty easily. Beckman is an interesting bet as a goalender in the top 100. I’m probably looking another direction, but Beckman was pretty good this year. Bruno Idzon I think is an interesting late round swing even if I’m not as high on him as maybe some others were. And Andre Tropham honestly really impressive goalender from what I’ve seen. I’m not an expert in goalending but I liked what I was seeing out of Tropham in terms of the athleticism tracking play the ability to just make stops and just clog play up, stop it all together, slow things down. Just a really nice player to have in net. And with that, we’re going to call it. If you like the video, definitely like and subscribe. If you really liked it, definitely consider a subscription over at scouching.ca where you can get access to all kinds of fun data tools and our Discord server and plenty of other fun stuff that you’re just not going to find anywhere else on the internet. So check that out at scouching.ca. Thank you for watching and we’ll see you in the next

The Ottawa Senators made some big moves at the 2025 NHL Draft — and in this video, Will Scouch goes through each of their picks and shares his thoughts on the players they selected. From first-rounders to late-round swings, Will breaks down what stood out, what might work, and what could be questioned.

At the end, he gives his overall thoughts and a final grade on the Senators’ 2025 draft class.

#NHLDraft #Senators #Scouching #HockeyProspects #OttawaSenators

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