Ottawa Senators Prospect Update - November 13th

Despite my best intentions, this whole two-week rotation for these updates hasn't paid off quite as we'd hoped. I genuinely thought we would have more content by way of accumulation and, boy, is my face red right about now. The Sens' prospects, as we'll get to in a second, by and large haven't exactly covered themselves in glory so far. Just look at all those zeros in the points category. Nevertheless, we forge ahead!

All I can really add by way of context is to thank someone for the high-scoring CHL and their extremely user-friendly interface with accessible content for folks like me. Eerik Wallenius deserves some love for another multi-point week but gleaning content from European junior leagues has proven unsurprisingly tricky as someone who does not speak Finnish (or Swedish for that matter).

Here are a few of the prospects whose performance since our last update merited highlighting:

Carter Yakemchuk

I did things in reverse alphabetical order for the past couple of updates and I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression so I'll lead with Yakemchuk who, since the Sens drafted him in the first round, has provided the bulk of the intrigue to date among Ottawa's prospects. Yakemchuk already had three points and 18 shots before Monday's game against Tri-City (an overtime loss for Calgary). Yakemchuk made a great first pass on Calgary's second goal of the game, showing off the kind of vision that makes you salivate for what's possible when he's regularly playing with NHLers. This comes one week after taking WHL highlight-of-the-night honours for a nifty little piece of puck-wrangling on a bobbled pass that the lanky defender managed to convert into a goal. He's doing a lot of the things we are expecting him to do, which is great to see.

Matthew Andonovski

After a cold start and zero puck-luck, Kitchener's captain got a couple of bounces in his favour this past week. Andonovski notched his first goal of the season by virtue of sticking with the play going to the net for Kitchener's first in an 8-4 stomping against Sudbury. Andonovski scored a much more aesthetically pleasing goal to open the scoring in another pronounced victory for the Rangers, this time against the Greyounds:

Not much else to report, but nice to see him get off the schneid.

Tomas Hamara

Suddenly an 'older' prospect in Ottawa's system, I feel ambivalent about Hamara returning to the OHL at this point in his development. I certainly expected Hamara to progress faster than he has but, at the same time, Ottawa has the left side of their D sewn up so they can take as long as they want developing defenders. Hamara scored his first goal of the OHL season on the powerplay in a loss against Oshawa. In the same game Hamara also added an assist (also on the powerplay) and got into a scrap (??). He won't face the same quality of competition in the OHL but Hamara will get bigger minutes, play in all phases, and have more responsibility as a leader than he would in Belleville so I'll let it cook. So far, so good.

Notes:

I should also add a few editorial notes here before parting:

-Blake Montgomery has transferred from Lincoln (USHL) to London (OHL) despite his success stateside. I look forward to seeing what Montgomery can do in an offence-first environment.

-On the subject of the OHL, Lucas Ellinas had a quiet week by his own standards but still shot the puck a bunch and will rebound from some bad shooting luck. He has still shot 15% on the year for what it's worth.

-I would also expect a good uptick from Javon Moore who so far has just two goals on almost thirty shots in this young season. He's getting chances, and when you're getting chances in the USHL, goals usually follow.

Stats