Ottawa Senators Prospect Update - April 12th

Between Ottawa and Belleville, there hasn’t been a lot of winning going on in the Senators’ organization recently, with three and two straight losses, respectively. And with respect to these prospect updates, players such as Shane Pinto, Jake Sanderson and Ridly Greig being out with injuries takes away from the fun. We’ve needed others to step up, and a couple of skaters certainly did.

Forwards

Zack Ostapchuk

This past week was the best of Ostapchuk’s junior career, as the 2021 second-round pick and Vancouver Giants captain tallied five goals and an assist in three games, including his first-ever WHL hat-trick on Saturday against the Kelowna Rockets.

🚨🎩 Zack Ostapchuk notched his first career WHL hat trick on Saturday night — he’s got 23G in 56GP this season #GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/15xYYJgmCl

— Sens Prospects (@SensProspects) April 10, 2022

Ostapchuk’s 41 points in 57 games isn’t an amazing total for a player drafted as high as he was, but his 24 goals this season are an indicator of his potential as a scoring center, and I’d bet on him having a very strong season next year, in which he’ll hopefully lead the Giants into the playoffs.

Cole Reinhardt

After playing in his first NHL game on Wednesday, Reinhardt returned to Belleville to score a goal in back-to-back losses against Rochester and Laval.

Cole Reinhardt opens the scoring for Belleville! #GoSensGo

That's 2 goals and 1 assist for Reinhardt in his 6.5 periods since returning from Ottawa. pic.twitter.com/Pkm8vF7g5k

— Everyday Sens (@EverydaySens) April 11, 2022

Although the B-Sens’ playoff hopes took a major hit this week, it’s still promising to see Reinhardt contribute offensively in a similar way to players like Parker Kelly before — both play a similar in-your-face style which could make them effective fourth-liners in the NHL. And both players are in the midst of carving out an unlikely path to the NHL, with Kelly impressing the Sens brass during annual development camps, and Reinhardt being selected in the sixth round of the 2020 draft after previously going undrafted in back-to-back years.

Philippe Daoust

It’s a weird feeling to look at the 2021 class as a whole in comparison to Philippe Daoust, a forward selected in the sixth round of the previous year’s draft. On one hand, it’s not easy to see 10th-overall picks fail to meet the bar set by late-rounders from last season, but the fact that Daoust has turned out as well as he has so far is still a win for the amateur scouting department. He contributed a goal and an assist in three games with the Saint John Sea Dogs, including an OT winner against Gatineau on Wednesday, and now has 34 points in 29 games on the year.

PHILIPPE DAOUST! THE OT WINNER! #CityofChampions pic.twitter.com/JCpeJeKJUh

— x - Saint John Sea Dogs (@SJSeaDogs) April 7, 2022

Defensemen

Lassi Thomson

It shouldn’t be too surprising given he was the 19th-overall pick of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft and the consensus best right-shot defenseman available at that point, but Lassi Thomson is having an inspired offensive season that hasn’t hurt his chances of becoming a Top-4 NHL blueliner. To put his 25 points in 36 games into perspective, forward Egor Sokolov had 25 in 35 last season in the AHL, when he was a year older than Thomson is now.

Lassi Thomson got one back for Belleville. Lots of time left. pic.twitter.com/JTVMMAroqH

— Everyday Sens (@EverydaySens) April 10, 2022

I think back to how much he improved between his two NHL stints, how he’s become one of, if not the best players on Belleville right now, and how the future is on Ottawa’s right side of the defense corps looks more promising than it has in years. Erik Karlsson will always reign supreme, but there wasn’t much to get excited about beyond him. Thomson and Artem Zub could give the team two strong right-handed options after a long time.

Ben Roger

Another second-rounder from 2021, Roger had one of his elusive two-point weeks to bring his total up to 13 points in 52 games. The overall lack of production across the class, sans Oliver Johansson on Timra’s U-20 club, has been a major concern, though we’ve seen Ottawa prospects have strong bounce-back seasons before. Drake Batherson is a good example, as an NHL All-Star whose D+1 production in the QMJHL was below a point-per-game. I know, I’m reaching here, not unlike the Senators with their selections.

Goaltending

Filip Gustavsson

I can’t say any of Ottawa’s young goalies did a great job this week, but Gustavsson was the only one to have a strong game, stopping 33 of 34 against Utica on Friday. He went 2-2 in four games, with a .882 save percentage, and will need to be more consistent going forward if Belleville wants to take part in the AHL playoffs this year.

Silver Linings

• Erik Brännström is doing an admirable job in Thomas Chabot’s absence — he stepped up offensively with three assists in four games, logging over 23 minutes against Nashville and Winnipeg.
• Parker Kelly and Mark Kastelic both notched an assist on Austin Watson’s opening goal against the Rangers on Saturday, and the trio was praised by head coach D.J. Smith following a game in which there was very little of it to go around. /

Austin Watson SCORES! 🚨 1-0 #GoSensGo

Watson's 7th of the season is assisted by Mark Kastelic and Parker Kelly. Watson heating up with 4 goals in his last 5 games 🔥 pic.twitter.com/2tcE94qWyp

— Lalime's Martian (@LalimesMartian) April 9, 2022

Kastelic also had a two-assist game for Belleville earlier in the week, bringing him to 25 points in 57 games.

Stats:

Pro (NHL, AHL)

NCAA

CHL

Europe

Goalies