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Ottawa Senators Prospect Update: November 14-20

Gagne, Formenton and Wolanin are this week’s biggest standouts.

The Sens prospects continued their action this week, with standouts coming from all over different leagues. The Belleville Senators went 1-1, convincingly defeating the highly ranked Lehigh Valley Phantoms 6-2, then falling embarrassingly to the lowly ranked Utica Comets 7-1.

Stats Sheet

(Click to enlarge)

Biggest Standouts

Gabriel Gagne

Spending most of 2016-17 in the ECHL, and being ineffective when called up, there’s no doubt that Gabriel Gagne’s rookie pro season was a disappointment. The Sens’ 2nd round pick in 2015 is in the midst of a bounce back season, however, already scoring four times as many goals in the AHL as he did last season, in less than half the amount of games played.

Gagne scored Belleville’s lone goal against Utica while leading the team with five shots, and added two more against Lehigh Valley. He’s been shooting a lot more as well, with 2.5 shots per game compared to 1.2 in 2016-17. He still has a long ways to go if he hopes to become an NHL regular, although he’s taken a significant step forward.

Alex Formenton

Making this section for the second week in a row, Formenton has helped the London Knights move back up the standings after a surprisingly slow start. His five-game point streak (10 points) came to an end against the Saginaw Spirit, but he still managed to pick up five points in a busy four game week.

He continues to dominate the league with his speed, being played on London’s top line next to Sam Miletic (Pittsburgh) and Robert Thomas (St. Louis). It’s quite the step up from being played in the bottom six last season, as Formenton will likely set new career highs in all scoring categories.

Christian Wolanin

Wolanin’s appeared in this section a few times now, and for good reason. His offensive instincts are the best amongst Ottawa’s defence prospects aside from Chabot, and he’s had no trouble finding the scoresheet in the NCAA’s toughest division. He leads the University of North Dakota in scoring, and is second in points amongst defencemen in the NCHC. His 42 shots rank 9th in the division, while his sixteen blocked shots also rank 16th. Watch for Wolanin to make the pro jump next season.

Silver Linings

  • Thomas Chabot was called up to the main roster yesterday with the injury to Mark Borowiecki. Although Chabot’s been having zero trouble on offence, his defensive play hasn’t been at quite the same level. At 5v5, his sixteen on-ice goals against is the most on Belleville, while being on for ten for his own team. It doesn’t help however that his most common partner is Erik Burgdoerfer.
  • Filip Ahl may be regretting his decision to head back to Sweden, as although he’s found himself a regular spot in the SHL, he’s only playing 6:34 per game.
  • Todd Burgess scored his first career NCAA goal this week at age 21, after missing all of last season injured.
  • It’s been a strong week for a couple Sens goalies, especially in the ECHL as Chris Driedger and Marcus Hogberg have one and two wins respectively as part of Brampton’s five game win streak. The two have been splitting starts along with Michael McNiven and Andrew D’Agostini, making for a crowded crease. McNiven’s been called up to the AHL (Laval), which has made the distribution slightly easier.
  • Filip Chlapik had his first career fight against Utica. Patrick Sieloff and Vincent Dunn also both picked up 10 minute misconducts in the blowout loss.
  • Logan Brown continues his OHL domination, picking up three assists in two games this week. His Windsor Spitfires were blanked 4-0 to Alex Formenton’s London Knights on Sunday. Those two, along with Drake Batherson, are making a good case to play for Canada at the World Juniors./

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