Ottawa Senators Prospect Update - February 5th

Considering the recent fortunes of your Ottawa Senators and their place in the eastern conference standings, I would have happily written this update with absolutely no good news coming from the farm system. So imagine my surprise when some of Ottawa's prospects actually had a decent week or two down in college/junior. Also, I should note that these stats are current as of Tuesday morning/afternoon.

Even with a regulation loss to Tampa, the Sens find themselves squarely in the playoff picture and we could realistically shift the question to what, if any prospect capital the Sens have to deal with beyond Yak, should they get aggressive at the trade deadline. On that note...

Carter Yakemchuk returneth! Ottawa's most coveted prospect rejoined Calgary post-injury to the tune of one goal, five assists, and 17 shots over his past five games. I don't know if Yak can make up the necessary ground in the WHL's scoring race among defenders but he can still put together a pretty clean stat line and more than anything I just feel relieved that he returned from injury on schedule. Yak had his best game since returning last Sunday against Red Deer with a goal, three assists, and four shots.

Eerik Wallenius still hasn't regained his scoring touch since returning to junior from Finland's professional tier. For all I know he has spent the time refining the defensive elements of his game while foregoing the generation of offence. I wish I could glean more stats to support this theory but the Finnish junior league doesn't have much in the way of stats available to the general public. The SHL has better statistical availability, but I still have pretty much nothing to say about Oliver Johansson.

Theo Wallberg had another shmegular couple of weeks in Ohio for the 11th-ranked Buckeyes. The important thing is that Theo is getting a fine education. Speaking of collegiates, Nick Van Tassell also had a regular couple of weeks for 18th-ranked UMass and his teammate Cam O'Neill has not played since our last check-in. Hoyt Stanley scored his first goal of the season for unranked Cornell on February 1st against Clarkson.

Owen Beckner has regained his scoring touch two goals, three assists, and 11 shots in his last four games and could be Ottawa's lone prospect in college to crack twenty points this season. On Friday against Western Michigan, Beckner had a goal on three shots. Tyson Dyck also had a noteworthy couple of weeks with a goal, two assists, and 11 shots for the Badgers. His best game came the Saturday before last against Michigan with a goal, an assist, and five shots in a big-ten matchup for 20th-ranked Wisconsin.

Keeping it in the NCAA, Kevin Reidler had one of his rougher outings of the season, conceding four goals on 13 shots in twenty minutes of relief work at Omaha got pummeled by Denver 11-2 (yikes). At least he didn't take the loss so his record still looks fine (as does his save percentage). In better goaltending news, Vladimir Nikitin has thoroughly enjoyed his return to North America. In three games back in the BCHL, Nikitin has three wins including an overtime win against Victoria on Friday, making 39 saves along the way and taking player-of-the-game honours.

Down in the USHL, Javon Moore had the type of week or two that we expected when Ottawa drafted him, with three goals, two assists, and 19 shots in his last five games. Moore had his best game of the week on Saturday with a goal, two assists, and three shots against Sioux City. Moore's teammate, Filip Nordberg had an assist, a minor penalty, and two shots in his last five games.

In the OHL, Blake Montgomery returned to human status with only two goals, two assists, and 12 shots in his last six games. He could still very well lead the pack in most categories by the end of the campaign despite changing leagues midseason. His highlight game came last Sunday with a goal, an assist, and three shots. Other known good dude, Tomas Hamara had a goal, six assists, and 12 shots in his last six games. Hamara will actually probably lead Ottawa's prospects in assists with four more on Sunday (and two shots) against Sudbury. Ottawa's previous top goal-scorer, Luke Ellinas currently appears sidelined with an injury. Ellinas' teammate Matt Andonovski had a decent couple of weeks by his standards with a goal, an assist, and nine shots.

Finally, known violent guy Gabriel Eliasson added ten more penalty minutes to his total since we last checked in. Cool. I did actually find it cool that, given how many defenders Ottawa has cooking in the OHL, the top four penalty kills in the league all belong to teams with Sens prospects and the three teams in the league that have allowed the fewest goals also happen to have some Sens representation. Probably a coincidence—but I choose to force a correlation in there for my own amusement if nothing else.

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