The 2026 NHL Draft just had a slight shakeup.

Entering Thursday, the Vancouver Canucks were projected to not just have the best odds at the first-overall pick and an additional first-round pick courtesy of the Minnesota Wild, but technically, they could have had a third pick in the first-round pick range. That was their second-round pick, which could have finished as high as 32nd overall due to the Ottawa Senators‘ 2026 first-round pick being forfeited.

However, that is no longer the case. The NHL announced on Thursday that it would modify the punishment for the Senators. Instead of losing their first-round pick, it is now just a guaranteed 32nd-overall pick, meaning the Canucks’ second-round pick can only place as high as 33rd overall. The Senators were also fined $1 million.

The Senators originally had to forfeit the pick as punishment for a botched trade between the Vegas Golden Knights and Anaheim Ducks around the 2022 trade deadline. The Golden Knights were looking to offload Evgenii Dadonov’s $5 million cap hit to free up space, and had a deal in place with the Ducks to trade him. But it was revealed that Anaheim was actually on Dadonov’s no-trade list, and the Senators had failed to disclose all the details of Dadonov’s no-trade clause when they had dealt him to Vegas in the summer of 2021. The trade was voided, and after an investigation into the situation, the NHL punished the Senators prior to the 2023-24 season.

There is some good news for the Canucks with this situation, as these rule changes don’t add another pick into the pool of potential picks to win the lottery over the Canucks. The Senators are locked in at 32nd overall and aren’t allowed to win the lottery, even if they miss the playoffs and are within range of the first-overall pick through the lottery. Should they win, the lottery will be redone to produce a different result.

This isn’t the first time the NHL has lightened the punishment on an originally forfeited first-round pick. The same occurred to the New Jersey Devils when they were charged for circumventing the salary cap with their initial contract to Ilya Kovalchuk. While the Devils had to forfeit their first-round pick within the next four drafts after the charge, the NHL eventually changed the punishment, and in 2014, the Devils were automatically given the 30th pick.