Ottawa Senators Prospect Update - April 18th

The season has ended for both Ottawa and Belleville while a few prospects are still in pursuit of their junior championships. In this week's prospect update, we'll focus primarily on the Belleville Senators, as their season just wrapped up on Sunday.

Let's take a look at the standouts at each position and a round up of other prospect-related items.

Forwards

Egor Sokolov

Once again, everyone's favourite teddy bear makes the cut for our prospect update. After being named the team's internal MVP, Sokolov had two goals and two assists in Belleville's final three games of the season.

Sokolov finished the season with 59 points in 70 games, establishing career highs in games played, goals, assists, points and penalty minutes. He also surpassed Drake Batherson for Belleville's franchise record with his 79th career assist.

Roby Järventie

Red Light Roby finished the season incredible strong with a pair of goals and four assists in three games this past weekend. Establishing a career high in goals with 15, Järventie had a fantastic sophomore season in the AHL. He fell just three points short of matching last year's totals, but played in 30 fewer games due to a long term injury he sustained in October.

Ridly Greig

Following Ottawa's elimination, Ridly Greig re-joined Belleville to help with the ultimately unsuccessful playoff push at the end of the year. That being said, Greig's impact was felt this past weekend as he added another pair of goals to his rookie totals.

Greig's rookie season in the AHL was relatively inconsistent, partially because he had multiple stints in the NHL so it was broken up a fair amount. He ended the year playing in just over half of Belleville's games, compiling 29 points in 39 games played.

To compare Greig's rookie numbers to some familiar players, his 0.38 goals per game ranked ahead of Batherson (0.37) but behind Alex Formenton (0.44) and Josh Norris (0.55) for their respective rookie campaigns.

Defensemen

Lassi Thomson

In his media appearance yesterday, GM Pierre Dorion dubbed Lassi Thomson the "most talented" defenseman in the system who's not currently with the NHL team but specifically mentioned he needs to see more consistency from the Finnish rearguard to have him move to the next level. This statement was accurately reflected in Thomson's final three games of the season as he compiled a whopping four assists. Coming into Friday's game against Rochester, Thomson went nine straight games without registering a point.

Jorian Donovan

The 2022 fifth round selection finished his junior season and was added to Belleville's lineup. He made his debut on Saturday against the Marlies, also appearing in Sunday's contest. He played primarily alongside Maxence Guénette on Belleville's third pairing, registering four shots on net.

Goaltending

Dylan Ferguson

Dylan Ferguson returned to action after a minor injury saw him miss some time. He hopped between the pipes against Toronto in Saturday's 7-2 win which saw Ferguson stop 29 of the 31 shots her faced. Since joining Belleville, Ferguson's season completely turned around. In five starts with the Marlies, he posted a 0.888 SV%. A fresh start in Belleville saw him start eight games while posting a 0.926 SV%. The BSens were 6-1-0 this season with Fergie tending the goal.

Silver Linings

• While he's on the older end of the prospect spectrum as a 27 year old, Rourke Chartier had an absolutely wild final weekend for Belleville, registering five goals - including a hat trick on Saturday - in three games. The AHL veteran finished the season with six goals and two assists in his final six appearances for the BSens.
• Tomas Hamara and the Kitchener Rangers notably swept the top seed Windsor Spitfires to advance to the second round of the playoffs. Unfortunately, they now find themselves down 2-0 to the London Knights. Hamara went pointless in the first two games of the series.
• The Winnipeg Ice find themselves tied with Moose Jaw one game a piece in their second round playoff series. After serving a one game suspension for cross checking, Zack Ostapchuk figured back into the lineup for game two, where he scored another goal. Ostapchuk now has four goals and an assist in five playoff games this season.

• Jakov Novak, Kevin Mandolese and the Allen Americans head into the Kelly Cup Playoffs this week. Novak had 11 points in 14 games after joining the ECHL this spring, while Mandolese holds a 0.922 career save percentage at the ECHL level.

Belleville Team Update

Well, the push for the playoffs ended for Belleville right around the same time as Ottawa. The BSens were mathematically eliminated on Tuesday night with a 6-3 Laval win over Toronto, bringing the Rocket to a point total Belleville could match but not pass, while Laval held the advantage in the tie breaker.

The final three games of the season were, essentially, freebies, as they didn't matter for Belleville in the standings. That being said, they went 2-1-0 in those three games, playing some really strong hockey in their two wins.

There will be a ton of questions for Belleville as the offseason gets underway. You'll be able to find Season In Review pieces on the BSens coming from this blog in the next few weeks where we'll dive deeper into individual player performances, team dynamics and an investigation into how much Belleville changed following the dismissal of Head Coach Troy Mann.

Stats

Pro (NHL, AHL)

USA (NCAA, USHL)

CHL

Europe

Goalies