Senators acquire William Eklund from Sharks for No. 9 pick

EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsThe Ottawa Senators may have found one player who can help fill the void left by Brady Tkachuk as they acquired left winger William Eklund on Tuesday from the San Jose Sharks.Eklund, prospect winger Kasper Halttunen and the rights to prospect forward Brandon Svoboda were moved to Ottawa with San Jose receiving the No. 9 pick in this week's NHL Draft.Ottawa's search for another top-six left winger began Sunday when it traded Tkachuk, who was the club's captain, to the Florida Panthers with a pair of 2026 first-round picks, a 2029 first-round pick and a 2030 second-round pick going the other way.Trading Tkachuk allowed the Senators to receive a substantial package rather than run the risk of losing him for nothing. But it also came with the caveat that they would need to find a way to replace a winger that averaged 0.81 points per game for his career with the Senators and 0.98 points in 60 games in 2025-26.One of the picks the Senators acquired in the trade was the No. 9 pick that they would only possess for 48 hours before moving it to the Sharks to get Eklund.The 23-year-old Eklund, who was the No. 7 pick in 2021, provides the Senators with a two-way, top-six winger. He finished with 15 goals and 53 points in 78 games for the Sharks during the 2025-26 season.He has three more years remaining on his contract worth $5.6 million annually as the deal is set to expire after the 2028-29 season. The Senators will have one year of team control for the 2029-30 season before Eklund is eligible to become a UFA in 2030-31.PuckPedia projects that the Senators now have $19.583 million in salary cap space that they could potentially use in another trade or in free agency which starts next Wednesday.San Jose trading away Eklund sees them part ways with one of the first players the franchise drafted as part of a rebuild that has since added Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, Collin Graf, Sam Dickinson, Michael Misa, and Yaroslav Askarov, among others.But the trade gives the Sharks three first-round picks in this year's draft with two of them coming in the top 10.The Sharks finished second in the NHL Draft Lottery behind the Toronto Maple Leafs, who are expected to take Penn State center Gavin McKenna.With Eklund in Ottawa, it now amplifies the belief that San Jose could use the No. 2 pick to select Frlunda winger Ivar Stenberg, who finished with 11 goals and 33 points in 43 games as an 18-year-old while playing in the SHL, the premier professional league in Sweden.