The Ottawa Senators used the 32nd pick of Friday’s NHL Draft on forward Jaxon Cover of the London Knights.
The 18-year-old Cover played in 67 games for the Knights in the OHL this season, where he scored 20 goals and finished with 52 points.
Ottawa was restored this pick as an adjusted punishment for the botched Evgenii Dadonov trade in 2022.
The league punished the Senators with the forfeiture of a first-round draft pick after a later trade between the Vegas Golden Knights and Anaheim Ducks was nullified due to no-trade clause documentation that protected Dadonov from a move to the Ducks.
Vegas never had Dadonov’s documentation because Ottawa failed to provide it. His contractual preference wasn’t public knowledge at the time as clauses are confidential, partly to protect the player’s privacy.
“It needed to be disclosed, and it wasn’t,” commissioner Gary Bettman said at Canadian Tire Centre before the Senators played the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 3 of this year’s first-round matchup. “Whether or not it was intentional — or if it was negligent — didn’t matter.”
Cover is the second player selected by the Senators in this draft, after they spent the 25th pick on Swedish forward Jonas Lagerberg-Hoen.
