As the Senators enter a new season, one of their biggest areas of strength is their depth at centre. There may not be a Hart Trophy candidate in there, but there’s some serious quality throughout the group.
Ten years ago, the Senators probably envisioned 18-year-old Logan Brown now being the best of this group in 2026, a skilled veteran leading the way for younger centres.
But it's a vision that never came close to reality.
At the 2016 Draft, the Senators were so excited to draft Brown that they didn't even want to risk waiting one more pick.
Pierre Dorion, less than two months into his new job as Sens GM, held the 12th overall selection. Worried that the New Jersey Devils would take Brown at 11, Dorion sent them a third-round pick for the right to switch spots with them and select the Windsor Spitfires star at No. 11.
When you think about it, the Devils' willingness to make that deal might hint that Brown wasn't actually going to be their selection. But you never know.
Brown was seen as one of the best prospects in the draft. So expectations were high. The Hockey News' Ryan Kennedy summed it up in our 2026 draft review issue.
"The Senators liked Logan Brown so much they traded up one spot to ensure they'd get him in the draft. The son of Ottawa 67's coach Jeff Brown was thrilled to go to the team he cheered for as a kid. Everyone involved will be even more thrilled if the 6-foot-6 center turns out to be the second coming of Joe Thornton."
Ten years later, and with all due respect, the Senators would have settled for the second coming of Joe Veleno.
The Senators weren't alone in seeing Brown's upside. He had 74 points in 59 games with Windsor in his draft year, and towering centres with skill don't come along too often.
But after draft day, it was one battle after another on the injury front. And even when healthy, it was clear that his skating needed further development.
Because of those two factors, he played just 30 NHL games for the Senators over four years. But his agent, Andy Scott, had another opinion of the situation right after the Sens cut him from training camp in 2019.
"I can say with full confidence, that I've really never seen another player met with such resistance by the team that drafted them early in the first round," Scott told TSN 1200 radio.
Scott pointed to the fact that the Senators were in the middle of a rebuild and were promoting "The Kids are All Right" as their slogan, arguing that if that was the case, maybe they should, you know, actually play the kids.
Brown did play 23 games with Ottawa that year, while putting up 8 points. In Belleville, he thrived with 28 points in 25 games, but as has been the case in every season of his career, it too was shortened by injury.
During training camp in 2021, five years after they drafted him, the Senators turned the page. They traded Brown to the St. Louis Blues for one season of forward Zach Sanford.
Going to St. Louis, where Brown spent a lot of years growing up, seemed like an ideal fresh start. He played a career-high 39 NHL games for the Blues in 2021-22, putting up 11 points. Brown played another 30 games for St. Louis in 2022-23, finishing with two goals and six points.
Those remain the last NHL games he's played. And while he's proven to be an excellent producer in the AHL, injuries have continued to leave him playing only small parts of seasons.
Brown signed a one-year deal with Tampa in the summer of 2023, but injuries wiped out his entire 2023-24 season. The following year, he signed an AHL contract with Syracuse and had a solid comeback season, recording 29 points in 33 games.
That was enough to convince Los Angeles to sign him to a one-year, two-way deal in July 2025. He played just 29 games for Ontario, posting 14 points.
As of this writing, Brown remains an unrestricted free agent.
Of course, criticizing a draft decision 10 years after the fact is super easy. Literally every NHL team has a long list of draft stories they'd like to rewrite.
But if the Brown pick feels like it has a little extra sting to it, there are a couple of reasons for that:
- They gave up a third-round pick for the right to make an ill-fated decision.
- Some pretty good players were still sitting right there.
Charlie McAvoy went three picks after Brown, 14th overall, to Boston. He's gone on to become a fantastic, hard-edged NHL defenceman, playing more than 570 games and producing more than 350 points.
And if they were really set on a skilled, 6-foot-6, 220-pound centre, Tage Thompson was still on the board too. Thompson took five years to pop as an NHL player, but he's become a star as well.
We also don't have to just cherry-pick the stars from that draft. If we're being honest, almost every first-rounder that year went on to play more NHL games than Brown's 99.
In fairness to Dorion and his crew, Brown wasn't some wild reach in 2016. He was a highly regarded prospect with a rare combination of size and skill, and the Senators weren't alone in believing he could become an impact player.
He's still only 28, so maybe his hockey story still has a chance for a happy ending. Stranger things have happened.
In the meantime, 10 years later, it's still fascinating to look back and wonder what might have been.
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
This article was first published in The Hockey News. For more Sens coverage at The Hockey News, click on one of the latest headlines below:
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