Ottawa Senators Prospect Update: February 28th

Maxence Guenette is one of the organization's six best defenders. Angus Crookshank is one of the organization's twelve best forwards. That is all.

Forwards

Angus Crookshank

With the second sentence of this piece, you had to know he'd be our first player highlighted. The speedy winger had a pair of goals, including Wednesday's game winner and an early go-ahead goal on Saturday. Since January 19th, Crookshank has played a total of 16 games, putting together 10 goals and 9 assists for 19 points in that span. What's more is that, through those 16 games, he's only been held off the scoresheet 3 times.

Stephen Halliday

The 2022 4th-rounder continues to lead the way offensively for Ohio State, with a two-assist effort in a 6-2 win over Michigan State on Friday. Halliday is up to 10 goals and 22 assists in 32 games in his sophomore year.

Jiri Smejkal

While he's on the older end of the "prospects" list, Jiri Smejkal has turned it on of late. This week, he had a pair of assists through three games but, more importantly, the physical Czech winger has three goals and four assists in his last seven games. Smejkal struggled early in the season to put up points in the AHL but, lately, we've seen him turn a corner.

Defensemen

Maxence Guénette

The right shot defender continues to provide hope for Sens fans everywhere with his solid play. It's possible that the Senators have managed to find a solid third pair guy with this seventh round selection. Through three games this week, Guénette compiled a goal and two assists, helping to lead the team to their three victory week.

Theo Wallberg

As he is also a leading source of offence on OSU, whenever Halliday has a good offensive week, you can expect Wallberg to fit in somewhere on the scoresheet as well. In this case, the 2022 6th-rounder and freshman defender also had two assists in that Friday victory, and is fourth on the team in scoring with 19 points in 32 games.

Goaltending

Mads Søgaard

The Great Dane™ had an outstanding performance last Wednesday evening, posting a .964 in Belleville's 4-1 win over Rochester. The team turned to him again on Friday for the second half of their back-to-back with the Americans, but the 6'7" netminder left the game early with an injury. The extent of his injury is currently unknown, but Søgaard played some fantastic hockey over the 1.5 games he played this week - allowing just two goals on 42 shots.

Belleville Update

The boys in Belleville won three straight this week, continuing the trend of streaky hockey.

Kicking off the week with a back-to-back with the Rochester Americans, the BSens had a decisive 4-1 win, courtesy of goalscorers Rourke Chartier, Angus Crookshank, Josh Currie and Garrett Pilon.

Friday's game against the Americans was a much closer affair, as it took both overtime and a shootout to decide a winner. Matthew Highmore and Rourke Chartier both scored in the shootout while Kevin Mandolese held the Americans to just one goal through four attempts. Most notably, this game saw Mads Søgaard exit halfway through with an apparent injury. There have been no major updates on this front, but Mandolese and Leevi Meriläinen were the tandem for Saturday's win over the Syracuse Crunch, so Søgaard leaving the game wasn't "just" precautionary.

Saturday in Syracuse was Belleville's most impressive performance of the week, knocking off the second place team in the North in a 4-2 win. A major factor in this win was Belleville's ability to play smart, disciplined hockey. They only found themselves on the penalty kill twice and successfully killed both off. Jacob Larsson opened the scoring just 96 seconds into the match and the BSens never trailed after that.

Belleville has another tough week ahead, with a showdown with the Utica Comets tonight before welcoming Rochester for another back-to-back this weekend. With the NHL Trade Deadline quickly approaching, Belleville will want to compile as many points as they can before they end up losing some of their firepower to Ottawa if and when names like Vladimir Tarasenko, Dominik Kubalik or others are shipped off the NHL roster.

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