Ottawa Senators Prospect Update and Belleville Recap - March 5th

Prospect Team of the Week

Forwards

Angus Crookshank continues to bear the load offensively in Belleville. Over his past three games Crookshank added two goals, an assist, and ten shots. Ho hum. He also won AHL player of the month honours for February and contributed to this meme:

Oskar Pettersson's start in the AHL didn't look much more promising than his start in the SHL but maybe he'll turn it around? He doubled his point total in Belleville this past week with a pair of assists and earned third star honours in Belleville's win last Wednesday so I'm willing to let the piano man cook.

Defence

You may have noticed that I only named two forwards there so as a bonus I would like to shoutout to Donovan Sebrango who doubled his point total in Belleville this past week with three more assists and a very healthy six shots on net. Sebrango has had a rough go in his first year as a Senators prospect (especially given the context of his acquisition) but that hasn't soured me on his potential. Because the Sens have so much depth down the left side, they can still let Sebrango develop for a couple more years on the farm.

Ottawa's real standout defenders once again come courtesy of the OHL where Matthew Andonovski continued his strong campaign in Kitchener with another goal and assist along with four shots. You have to love the patience on this one:

Jorian Donovan got up to his old tricks with two goals, two assists, and five shots through three games with Saginaw. Donovan had cooled off since the trade but maybe this past week's performance acts as an indicator of more production down the stretch en route to the Memorial Cup.

Goaltender

Once again I refuse to choose just one goaltender because we enjoyed another one of those weekends when all of Ottawa's goaltending prospects played pretty darn well. Mads Søgaard lost his lone NHL start but played one of the better games we've seen from an Ottawa netminder in what feels like a while. Leevi Meriläinen split his record 1-1 but had an admirable save percentage of 93.8 (and a shutout for his win) while Kevin Mandolese won his lone start for Belleville. In junior, both Kevin Reidler and Vladimir Nikitin went undefeated (including a shutout). Now let's relive that sweet goalie goal again:

Belleville Update

The Belleville Senators can be summed up with a simple quote from noted American philosopher Frank "The Tank" Ricard.

After a rough month of February, the BSens have gone 5-1-0 in their last six games, after splitting their series with Rochester this past weekend.

Overall, this roster turned the page on their lacklustre play after their last winning streak to go out and do it again. As noted above, Oskar Pettersson and Angus Crookshank were big players on the offensive side of things for Belleville this week as the former put together a pair of assists while the latter had a pair of goals and an apple of his own.

Rourke Chartier has continued to show that he's a textbook 'tweener - being too good for the AHL but not quite good enough to hold a consistent spot in Ottawa. The Saskatoon centre added three goals to his totals this week, giving him 10 points in 12 games since being waived at the beginning of February.

This string of impressive play has Belleville sitting third in their division and there is a bit of clarity starting to form around the playoff picture. Just a few weeks ago, only four points separated third from seventh (last), that gap is now eight points with Belleville accruing 61 points to date and Utica/Laval sitting with 53.

There are only 18 games remaining in the season and if Belleville can manage to continue playing more like this, playoffs are certainly within reach.

Stats