Ottawa Senators Prospect Update: The Season’s Sudden End

This week’s Sens prospect update will be a bit shorter, for obvious reasons. Virtually every sports league around the globe is on hiatus, which has brought this season’s series of prospect updates to a sudden stoppage.

It’s wild to think that there were still hockey games happening a week ago, but as minimal as they may be, there’s still a few games we can discuss. We won’t fully wrap up the series until we know more about whether some seasons could go on (although at least the AHL’s season seems to be over). We’ll also still have our Prospect Awards sometime before the draft. But in the meantime, here are this week’s biggest standouts.

Biggest Standouts

Maxence Guénette

The Sens’ lone QMJHL prospect ended his season on a strong note, notching two assists in Val-d’Or’s 4-2 win over Rouyn-Noranda. He may have the lowest P/GP amongst 2019-drafted QMJHL defencemen (behind Jordan Spence, Artemi Knyazev and Samuel Bolduc), but for a 7th round pick, Guénette has shown that he can still play an integral role on his team, especially as a more developed two-way player. From Pick224.com, Guénette’s estimated to have played 23:55 per game, the second highest on Val-d’Or.

Filip Gustavsson

The B-Sens may have lost their only game this week in a 3-0 shutout, but Filip Gustavsson gave them a chance, allowing only two goals on 37 shots against. It’s been a fantastic back half of the season for Gustavsson, who was named AHL Goalie of the Month in January, and has been a key cog for Belleville in breaking away in the North division standings.

Silver Linings

• If you aren’t following SensProspects on Twitter or YouTube, do it now. Bless the man’s soul, he’s provided us with a highlight reel of Shane Pinto’s breakout 2019-20 season. Pinto was also named to the NCHC’s All-Rookie Team.
• A silver lining in all of this is that players will have ample time to recover from their injuries. Erik Brännström, Logan Brown, Jonathan Davidsson and others were all out of action when the leagues shut down. An already star-studded lineup should be plenty rested heading into next season.
• With the NCAA postseason officially cancelled, Chris Wilkie’s collegiate career has come to an end. He’s 23 and going on 24, but his rate of shots on goal per game was the highest in the entire NCAA (5.15). The Sens have until August 15th to sign him, or he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
• The NCAA has also announced their All-Conference teams, with Jakov Novak being named to the first team for Atlantic Hockey.

And... that’s all, at least for now. Thank you for following along with the series this season, we wouldn’t be here writing if it wasn’t for you, the readers. We’ll likely have more prospect-related content on the way, so be on the lookout!