Ottawa Senators Prospect Update - January 22nd

I really wish I had something better to offer you as a consolation after last night's absolute bed-shitting by your Ottawa Senators but alas this measly update will have to suffice. Let's all feel bad together.

Even as more of a traditional stay-at-home type defender, I keep expecting Matthew Andonovski to enjoy some sort of uptick in production given his numbers last year. I would rationalize that he has had much less sheltered deployment and much more difficult assignments as the leader of his team and the backbone of Kitchener's defence but yeah I dunno 11 points seems underwhelming given all those minutes. And the Chris Phillips award goes to–

Owen Beckner randomly went off with a four-assist performance after a lengthy dry-spell for Colorado College. When it rains, it pours.

Tyson Dyck: a guy who exists.

Gabriel Eliasson and Filip Nordberg continue to vie for the Tyler Kleven award (not that I really expect either to have as much success as Kleven has) or maybe more accurately the Andreas Englund award. Eliasson has racked up a whopping 80 penalty minutes this season and to his credit also notched his fifth point.

Bearing in mind that Ottawa's prospect pool has fallen a long way in the past three or four years (and how much the organization has favoured defenders at the draft), I certainly still would not have guessed that a fourth-rounder would lead the group in goals and shots this far into the campaign. Full credit to Luke Ellinas though who had three assists and nine shots over his past three games as he sits frustratingly close to a point-per-game pace for Kitchener.

As much as I loved Tomas Hamara the moment Ottawa drafted him, I should probably remind myself that a lot of folks considered it a high-risk, high-reward type pick and that we all knew it would take Hamara a while to put it all together. With that in mind, Hamara keeps doing his thing in Brantford and while he had a relatively quiet couple of weeks (one goal and one assist) he has shot the puck at a decent rate (13 shots in five games) and I look forward to what he can do in Belleville next year.

Considering the spoils of the 2020 draft for the Sens, 2021 provided an appropriate balancing of accounts. Oliver Johansson joins the parade of draftees not named Zack Ostapchuk who have helped to make the 2021 class utterly forgettable.

Blake Montgomery, since transferring from the USHL to the OHL, has put up the type of junior numbers we haven't seen from a forward since Ridly Greig. Montgomery added four goals, three assists, and 14 shots to his totals since we last checked in and now he sits just outside the top-20 in points-per-game among U20 skaters in the OHL. I reckon he will lead Ottawa's prospects in most categories by the end of the season.

Javon Moore still hasn't quite put up the numbers I expected in the USHL this season but he also didn't have a bad week with two assists and eight shots through four games. In fairness, he just left high school and I realize it takes time to adjust. Dude will have to do some work in the offseason though before reporting to the University of Minnesota in the fall.

Chilliwack has traded Vladimir Nikitin's BCHL rights to Nanaimo. The trade went down a couple weeks ago and Nikitin hasn't made his season debut in Canada yet but I would imagine he sees some action in the coming days. Nikitin didn't have much success in Kazakhstan this season and I don't think the change of scenery will hurt.

Filip Nordberg had an uncharacteristically productive week with a goal and an assist through three games (he also had a very characteristic 16 penalty minutes). I know teams always need a few bruising defenders in the system and the Sens definitely have a couple of those.

Cam O'Neill has returned to action. That's all I have to say about him.

Kevin Reidler should probably get into at least one more game every couple of weeks if for no other reason than to give me some more content. In the rare opportunities Reidler has had, he has killed it. Reidler won his most recent contest, conceding just one goal and bringing up his save percentage over 0.93 as a freshman. For all I know Reidler has a good thing going with Omaha but I can see a lot of other players in the same situation opting for a transfer. Maybe the team is sheltering the young netminder? I dunno. Let the kid play.

The Senators had virtually no meaningful draft capital in the summer of 2023 and it feels unfair to have any expectations of Hoyt Stanley as Ottawa's first pick (considering said pick occurred in the fourth round). Stanley hasn't really found another gear in his sophomore season and I guess that shouldn't really surprise me.

Nick Van Tassell is still definitely a guy.

Theo Wallberg has to have the worst sophomore slump going of any of Ottawa's prospects. After such an impressive freshman season, we really haven't had much to report from the Swedish left-hander this year.

I had kinda hoped that Eerik Wallenius would have benefited from some time playing professional hockey in Finland and that with the experience he would have returned to junior and set the world on fire. That hasn't manifested and Wallenius seems to have gone into a funk back in U20, oh well.

Calgary has updated Carter Yakemchuk's lower-body injury status from week-to-week to day-to-day so I can only hope to have some Yak highlights for you when we check in again in two weeks.

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