- A Senators behind-the-scenes video shows Pittsburgh offered a roster player for the 25th overall pick at the 2026 draft
- Vancouver called too, dangling picks 33 and 41 for Ottawa’s 25 and 72
- Read below for what Steve Staios said on the call and which Penguins forward fits best
Kyle Dubas tried to buy his way back into the first round on draft night, and Ottawa said no.
A behind-the-scenes video the Senators posted to YouTube this week shows general manager Steve Staios working the phones at the 2026 draft. One of those calls came from Pittsburgh, and the Penguins offered a roster player for the 25th overall pick.
Staios laid out where things stood for his staff after fielding a separate offer:
“No pick offers are good enough just yet, but Pittsburgh’s interesting with the roster player.”
Watch the whole sequence play out in Ottawa’s draft room:
Vancouver had rung first. On the tape, Staios repeats the terms back to the other end of the line, 33 and 41 for 25 and 72, tells them he will text right back, then talks it over with his group and passes.
Ottawa kept everything. Staios took Swedish winger Jonas Lagerberg Hoen at 25, a name he hints was 16th on the Senators’ board, and closed out the first round with Jaxon Cover at 32.
Pittsburgh’s motive is easy enough to work out. The Penguins had just taken Liam Ruck 22nd and made no secret of wanting his twin brother Markus in the organization too. They never needed the trade. Markus fell to them at 39.
Which roster player Dubas dangled is the fun part, and Staios never says it out loud. Pro Hockey Rumors worked through the roster and landed on two realistic names, Tommy Novak and Justin Brazeau.
Brazeau is the cleaner fit for what Ottawa wanted. He is 6-foot-6, carries a $1.5 million cap hit for 2026-27 and put up 17 goals and 34 points in 64 games last season.
The Senators had already traded for Andre Burakovsky on draft day, so scoring depth on the wing was clearly sitting on their to-do list.
He is also buried in a Pittsburgh forward group with far more bodies than jobs, which is exactly the kind of player a GM shops in June.
Both offers got turned down inside a few minutes, and the Senators still walked out with a winger their staff had ranked nine spots higher than where he went. Not a bad night in the war room.
