Ottawa Senators 2024 Top 25 Under 25, #19: Matthew Andonovski

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With only five selections (a 4th, a 5th and three 7ths) in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft, fans of the Ottawa Senators were left with little to celebrate after another lost season. And after the club took Markham, ON native Matthew Andonovski 140th overall, it's hard to imagine that a look at his production changed things on that front. A participant of 110 OHL games prior to the Draft, this 6'2 left-shot defenseman had just 20 assists, and zero goals in his OHL career.

Not that goals are an all-important stat for defencemen, but there's at least some connection between possession (and therefore a lack of chances against) and scoring. The Sens were clearly banking on Andonovski as a player with an immense potential for growth in terms of moving the puck, with his defensive game and nastiness being his two main draws.

He was a key defender for the Kitchener Rangers in the 2023 playoffs, tasked with preventing opposing chances at even-strength and on the penalty kill. The Rangers pulled off a historic feat in junior hockey that year by punting the conference-leading Windsor Spitfires out of the playoffs in four consecutive games whilst allowing just 7 goals and killing 15 of 16 penalties in the process—and now you've got my attention. I'm all for using late-round selections on players who contributed to that feat.

Despite a poor track record of identifying quality defensemen in the earlier rounds of the draft, the Senators have found potential NHLers in the later rounds, such as Maxence Guenette (7th-round in 2019) and Jorian Donovan (5th-round in 2022). Andonovski appears to be on track to follow suit based on his development in 2023-24.

He would score his first OHL goal in his season debut against Saginaw, and his second the next day against Flint, going on to score a total of 7 goals and 25 assists for a total of 32 points in 65 games. This doubled his production from .24 PPG in 2023 to 0.49 this season, and he was Kitchener's second-most productive defenseman after Hunter Brzustewicz. Despite only tallying a single assist in 10 playoff games, he helped the 4th-seeded Rangers knock off the 5th-seeded Erie Otters in six games, before falling in a second-round sweep to those damn London Knights again.

His +58 rating led all players in the OHL, and was +27 ahead of the second-best on the Rangers. We can't determine the impact of his own play on that number without looking at on-ice shooting and save percentages, but there are other indicators that Andonovski was a great defender this past season.

In the OHL Coaches Poll for 2023-24, he was rated the Western Conference's Best Defensive Defenseman, Best Penalty Killer and Best Body Checker. His progress gave the front office an increased level of confidence and this past offseason, he signed his entry-level deal with the Senators during their annual Development Camp.

Being a fantastic penalty killer is great and all, but you can also prevent power-play goals against by staying out of the box. With 124 PIMs this past season, Andonovski certainly didn't. But how often did he actually put his team shorthanded when it counted? Going through the box scores of each of his games, we find 20 minutes worth of fighting majors, along with 28 more minutes of coincidental minor penalties.

He took two more major penalties in the dying seconds of blowout losses, so that leaves 66 minutes of minor penalties and therefore 33 occasions in which he negatively impacted his team's chances of winning – about one every two games. A challenge going forward will be limiting the number of PIMs without sacrificing his mean streak. He can still assert himself physically when shutting down offense while cutting back on slashing, high-sticking, and interference penalties, of which he totaled 38 minutes.

Going into his final year of junior hockey with Kitchener, we're looking for another jump in production for Andonovski, along with maintaining his noticeably strong defensive play. If Kitchener falls out of the playoff race, Andonovski should find himself on a contender via trade given his reputation around the league. From there, it's Belleville for who knows how long, but I think he's a good bet to play NHL games before his entry-level deal clocks out.