NHL commissioner Gary Bettman says he felt it was appropriate to give Senators a first-round pick this spring

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. Photo by Joe Hrycych /Getty Images

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It turns out that time does heal all wounds.

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Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League, attended Game 3 of the Ottawa Senators’ Round 1 playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday at the Canadian Tire Centre.

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Bettman likely received a lot warmer welcome than he might have if he had not come around and announced last month that he will give the Senators a first-round pick back in this spring’s NHL draft. Originally, Bettman had penalized the Senators a first-round draft choice in either 2024, 2025 or 2026 because of a botched deal with the Vegas Golden Knights involving winger Evgenii Dadonov.

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Speaking to reporters before the puck was dropped in Game 3, Bettman said that he felt the original punishment was appropriate, but that Senators owner Michael Andlauer appealed to the fact that the Senators build through the draft.

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“Michael Andlauer, from the time he closed on the franchise, made it clear that this was something important to him,” Bettman said. “He understood the need for there to be some punishment based on what had transpired in the Dadonov trade.

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“I thought it was important, particularly for other clubs, how seriously we take the processes of how you must comply with a trade. I was comfortable that some adjustment might be fair based on the due diligence and everything leading up to the transaction, without completely eliminating it. I thought it was fair under all the circumstances.”

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The NHL announced on March 12, days after the trade deadline, that the Senators will receive the No. 32 overall selection in June’s draft instead of having to forfeit their first-round pick completely.

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In 2021, former Senators general manager Pierre Dorion didn’t supply the Knights with Dadonov’s proper no-trade list when they dealt him to Vegas. The following year, at the trade deadline, the Golden Knights tried to send Dadonov to Anaheim. But the swap was scuttled because the Ducks were on Dadonov’s no-trade list.

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Vegas management was upset with the Senators and insisted that the NHL investigate what happened. A hearing was held in New York with all the parties involved, and Bettman decided to hand down a severe punishment on Nov. 1, 2023, which resulted in Dorion’s dismissal from his post.

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The Senators opted not to forfeit the first-round selection in 2024 or 2025 in hopes that the league would find a way to give them a pick back. They did apply to the league’s head office to reconsider the punishment, which also included a $1-million fine.

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Andlauer still had to pay the fine.

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There is precedent for this happening. The New Jersey Devils were supposed to forfeit a first-round pick between 2012 and 2014 after a deal they signed with Ilya Kovalchuk circumvented the cap.

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The club pushed the decision back to 2014 and, on the eve of the draft, Bettman rescinded the punishment.

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That’s why Andlauer and Steve Staios, the club’s president of hockey operations, were in no hurry to forfeit the pick.

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Bettman said the league is working with officials from the NHL Players’ Association to put measures in place to make sure that no-trade clauses are properly communicated at the time of a deal.

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“We want to make sure we don’t have a situation where all the information isn’t available to us,” said Bettman. “It should be on file, and it has to be disclosed. In this case, it needed to be disclosed, and it wasn’t. Whether or not it was intentional or it was negligent, it didn’t matter. I don’t think it was intentional; it was negligent.”

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