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Senators Sign AHL Head Coach David Bell To A Two-Year Extension

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Earlier today, it was noted that the Senators were turning their focus toward getting their AHL coaching staff finalized for next season.  It didn’t take long to get the first piece of the puzzle in place as the team announced (Twitter link) that they’ve signed Belleville head coach David Bell to a two-year contract extension.  His deal was set to expire at the end of the month.

Bell has spent the last five seasons with Belleville.  He started as an assistant coach with them in 2019-20 and was elevated to the interim head coaching role in February 2023.  While they missed the playoffs that season, the interim tag was still lifted, a move that worked out well.  Belleville finished fourth in the North Division this season and then won the opening round of the playoffs over Toronto (their first series win in franchise history) before falling to Cleveland.

Bell has never worked at the NHL level but is certainly experienced behind a bench.  He has ten years of OHL coaching experience under his belt while he had four years of being an AHL assistant before joining Ottawa’s system.  While he’ll have to wait a little longer for his first opportunity at the top level, he now has a bit of stability while looking to build on a strong finish from this past season.

Sens Hoping To Get AHL Coaching Staff Finalized Shortly

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  • With their NHL coaching staff now finalized, the Senators are turning their focus to AHL Belleville, reports Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch. Head coach David Bell’s contract is set to expire at the end of the month although discussions on a new agreement are now underway.  GM Steve Staios indicated that he hopes to get things finalized for their farm team within the next few days.

Senators Re-Sign Cole Reinhart To Two-Way Deal

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The Senators are keeping depth forward Cole Reinhardt in the organization next season, per a team announcement. It’s a one-year, two-way deal that carries an NHL salary and cap hit of $775K with an AHL salary of $95K.

Reinhardt, 24, was a sixth-round pick of the Sens in 2020 after being passed over in the 2018 and 2019 drafts. The Calgary-born left winger has just one NHL appearance to his name, skating 8:35 against the Predators in a game on April 7, 2022, while recording a shot on goal and taking a minor penalty.

Ottawa has still gotten solid value out of Reinhardt as a late-round selection thus far. He’s grown into a consistent contributor with AHL Belleville, putting up 40 goals and 99 points in 225 games over the last four years. Reinhardt leverages his 6’1″, 207-lb frame to play a heavy game and has displayed good shooting ability in the past, although he was limited to only eight goals in 56 contests this season.

Reinhardt spent his first professional season, 2020-21, on an AHL contract with Belleville before signing his entry-level deal with Ottawa the following offseason. That rookie contract covered his last three seasons of play, making this his first standard contract. He would have become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights had he not extended before July 1.

He earns a minor raise on the $70K AHL salary he earned in the final year of his rookie deal. Reinhardt will be an arbitration-eligible RFA again next summer upon expiry.

Morning Notes: Senators, Sweden U20, AHL Prospects

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The Ottawa Senators are making sure they won’t be outdone on the trade market, now making the seventh-overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft available for the right price, per Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Citizen. During an event held for season ticket holders to hear about the team’s off-season plans, Senators’ senior vice president Dave Poulin shared, “We had interest in the (No. 7) pick. Teams will call you and say, ‘Are you interested in moving the pick?’ and you don’t know what that’s going to look like because you don’t know what’s going to be available there. You have to stay very flexible.”

Including the seventh-overall pick in trade talks will bring the Senators more in line with the New Jersey Devils, who began shopping around the 10th-overall pick during the NHL Combine. The two teams headline a long list of teams interested in bringing in new goaltending talent this summer, and should be among the top options for trade bait like Linus Ullmark, Juuse Saros, and John Gibson. Dave Poulin made sure to emphasize Ottawa’s pursuit of a goaltender when speaking with Garrioch, adding that the team wasn’t happy with their goaltending tandem “numerically, statistically, or from an analytics standpoint.” The Senators’ tandem of Joonas Korpisalo and Anton Forsberg combined for a .890 save percentage this season – though their consistency in the lineup allowed Ottawa to rely on just three goalies this season, the fewest they’ve needed to get through a year since the 2019-20 season. But despite good health, the Senators goalies didn’t stand up to the task this year, and the team is once again doomed to spending the summer finding the right option in net.

But despite the interest elsewhere, it doesn’t seem Ottawa is ready to part with Korpisalo just yet. When asked, Poulin offered relief to Korpisalo’s down year, speaking to the difficulty in adjusting to a new team and the lack of defensive stops in front of him, relative to what he had with the Los Angeles Kings. Korpisalo just concluded the first season of a five-year, $20MM contract signed with the Senators last summer. He’ll be the team’s de facto backup should they bring in a new starter, and likely their go-to starter should things stay the same. The off-season event for season ticket holders where this information was conveyed is slated to be a yearly event for the Senators.

Other notes from around the league:

  • Team Sweden has announced the coaching staff that will oversee their U19 and U20 international teams next season. The group is manned by Magnus Hävelid, who has coached Sweden’s international juniors teams since 2017. He’ll be flanked by Gereon Dahlgren, and former NHL defenders Robin Jonsson and Nicklas Grossmann. Both Dahlgren and Jonsson are returning to their posts, while this news marks Grossman’s first time coaching an international squad. The quartet will lead Sweden’s lineups at the World Junior Summer Showcase and World Junior Championship, as well as in team friendlies.
  • The AHL has announced their All-Prospect team, as voted on by the league’s hockey operations department and general managers. The team includes AHL Rookie of the Year Logan Stankoven (DAL), as well as Shane Wright (SEA), Jiri Kulich (BUF), Simon Edvinsson (DET), Brandt Clarke (LAK), and Yaroslav Askarov (NSH). Each player appeared in NHL games this season, though Stankoven has become the first to carve out a daily role – recording 22 points across his first 43 NHL games, combined between the regular season and playoffs. His All-Prospect team peers will look to catch up to him with daily lineup spots next season.

Daniel Alfredsson Willing To Wait For Head Coaching Job

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Kevin Kurz of The Athletic is reporting that Philadelphia Flyers forward Sean Couturier had surgery after the season to repair a sports hernia. Couturier had a very eventful 2023-24 season after missing the previous season due to a back issue that required multiple surgeries.

The Flyers reportedly knew about the sports hernia as Couturier played through the ailment for much of the season and it clearly had an impact on his play as the 31-year-old managed just a goal and eight assists in his final 34 games. Couturier was named the Flyers captain back in February and is expected to be back to full health by the time training camp rolls around in September.

In other notes from the Eastern Conference:

  • Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia is reporting that Ottawa Senators assistant coach Daniel Alfredsson wants to put in serious time as an assistant before becoming an NHL head coach. The Senators reportedly talked to their former long-time captain about the head coach position, but Alfredsson told management that he wanted to learn the ropes before taking on the job. Alfredsson will be joined behind the Senators bench by new head coach Travis Green as well as assistants Mike Yeo, Nolan Baumgartner, and Ben Sexton.
  • The Florida Panthers and their ECHL affiliate the Florida Everblades have reportedly ended their affiliation agreement. The agreement between the ECHL and NHL franchises began in 2022-23 and included the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers. While the partnership was short lived it was incredibly successful as the Everblades won the Kelly Cup in both years of the deal, while the Panthers are in their second consecutive Stanley Cup Final. The Everblades have previously been the affiliate for Nashville, Carolina and Tampa Bay and will announce a new affiliation in the coming weeks.

Senators UFA Jiri Smejkal Signs In Czechia

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Senators pending unrestricted free agent Jiri Smejkal won’t be returning to the team next season – or the NHL entirely, for that matter. The Czech winger is returning home on a long-term deal with HC Dynamo Pardubice, keeping him in the top-level Extraliga through the 2028-29 season, per a team announcement.

Smejkal, 27, was one of the first international free agent signings of the 2023 offseason, landing with the Sens in early May. He was coming off a strong season with IK Oskarshamn of the Swedish Hockey League, posting 23 goals and 43 points in 49 games.

Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for the 6’4″ power winger in North America. He didn’t make the team out of camp and was assigned to AHL Belleville, although he eventually earned a recall in December. Smejkal went on to play 20 games in Ottawa this season, potting his first and likely only NHL goal in the final game of the campaign against the Bruins. He added an assist but managed just 10 total shots on goal and averaged less than 9:30 per game while posting some of the worst possession metrics on the team.

Clearly outmatched at the NHL level, Smejkal did decently well in the minors for the B-Sens, posting nine goals and 22 points in 47 games. But he struggled in the postseason, going without a point in seven contests.

After that tough showing, it’s no surprise to see Smejkal return to Europe. He’ll play in Czechia next season for the first time since suiting up with HC Sparta Praha in 2019-20. The native of Ceske Budejovice will likely play out his prime in Pardubice, whose roster boasts former Sharks Martin Kaut and Lukas Radil at forward and ex-Rangers blue liner Libor Hájek on defense. They’ve had the best record in the Extraliga for two years in a row but haven’t won a league championship since 2012.

Senators Listening To Offers For Seventh Overall Pick

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The Senators fell short of expectations again this season by finishing 13 points out of a playoff spot. Naturally, entering their first offseason with Steve Staios as general manager, they’ll be looking to make a major roster shakeup to finally get back to postseason play in 2024-25.

According to Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun, Ottawa is listening to offers for their seventh overall pick in this month’s draft in order to do so.

As Garrioch points out, the likeliest area for a big trade is between the pipes. He reported earlier in the week that the team is aggressively pursuing a goaltending upgrade. They’ve been in conversation with the Flames about Jacob Markström, made a push for the Bruins’ Linus Ullmark and contacted the Predators about Juuse Saros.

If the Sens parted with the seventh-overall pick in a trade, they wouldn’t be out of action on the first night of the draft entirely. They also own the 25th overall pick, originally sent from Boston to the Red Wings in last year’s Tyler Bertuzzi trade deadline deal and again from Detroit to Ottawa for Alex DeBrincat.

Still, parting with a top-10 selection in one of the deeper early first rounds in recent memory is a tough pill to swallow for a team that’s largely exhausted the prospect pool it has built up from years of rebuilding. Their three first-round picks in 2020, Tim Stützle, Jake Sanderson and Ridly Greig, have all graduated to NHL roles and look to all be on their way to hitting their ceiling. That’s great, but they haven’t managed to draft any true impact prospects since then, and there’s little help on the way.

Garrioch said a trade involving seventh overall may not see them surrender the pick entirely – moving back in the first round to make an immediate roster upgrade is also an option. But that would still see them acquire a significantly lower-quality prospect than the top-six forwards and even top-pair defenders that will still be available at No. 7 unless it’s only a few spots.

“There are so many questions about this early group,” senior vice president of hockey operations Dave Poulin said. “It’s very hard to nail down. Very often, you know who is going to go No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3. This group is all over the board. By all accounts, Macklin Celebrini will go No. 1, and after that, it’s wide open.”

Garrioch relays that Poulin also said at a season ticket-holder event last night that the club had offers on the table for short-term upgrades back at the trade deadline. But with the new-look front office coming into shape throughout the season (Poulin wasn’t hired until New Year’s, for example), they weren’t comfortable making any major transactions without more time to develop a long-term plan as a cohesive group.

One thing is clear – the spinning-tires days of the Pierre Dorion era are over, at least ideologically. Whether Staios, who’s months into his first GM job at the NHL level, can execute that remains to be seen.

Aside from seventh overall, they may end up with another high-value trade chip in defenseman Jakob Chychrun. Entering the final year of his contract, they’ll need to suss out quickly whether he’s willing to re-sign.

If not, expect the 2016 16th-overall pick to be on the move for the second time in the last two years. The 26-year-old’s value is high after staying healthy for all 82 games this season, smashing his previous career high of 68 while posting 41 points and averaging 22:23 per game. His possession metrics, while not elite, were far better than his -30 rating would suggest (51.2 CF%, 50.2 xGF% at even strength).

Sens Receiving Interest In Seventh Pick

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  • Speaking at a season ticket holder session, Senators Senior Vice President Dave Poulin indicated that they have fielded trade interest in the seventh-overall selection, per Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch (Twitter link). Ottawa underachieved considerably this season as instead of pushing for a playoff spot, they were well out of the mix early, resulting in changes both in the front office and behind the bench.  The Sens have to forfeit one of their first-round picks between now and 2026 as part of the punishment for failing to disclose Evgenii Dadonov’s no-trade clause to Vegas in 2021, eventually resulting in a failed trade to Anaheim the following year.  However, with this pick being so early, they wisely decided not to make this the year they lost the selection.

Senators Re-Sign Angus Crookshank

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The Senators have taken care of one of their pending restricted free agents with an early contract.  The team announced that they’ve re-signed forward Angus Crookshank to a one-year, two-way agreement.  The deal pays $775K in the NHL and $120K in the minors.  GM Steve Staios released the following statement on the signing:

Angus has established himself as a reliable point producer in Belleville. He’s a strong competitor and a proven goal scorer who doesn’t back down, especially when it comes to getting to the opponent’s net. We’re pleased with his progress and expect further improvement from him next season.

The 24-year-old played on the final year of his entry-level deal in 2023-24, spending most of it in the minors with AHL Belleville.  With them, as Staios alluded to, Crookshank was quite reliable offensively, posting 24 goals and 22 assists in just 50 games.  That performance helped earn him his first NHL opportunity as he got into 13 games with Ottawa where he picked up two goals and an assist while logging just over 10 minutes a night.

Crookshank still has a year of waiver exemption remaining, something that doesn’t happen too frequently for players exiting a three-year rookie deal.  That means he’s likely earmarked to start with Belleville once again in 2024-25 but if he can produce at a similar level next season, he should be one of Ottawa’s first recalls when injuries strike.

Senators Aggressively Pursuing Goaltending Upgrade

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The Senators may add their name to the goalie carousel this summer. As the Ottawa Sun’s Bruce Garrioch writes, general manager Steve Staios is becoming intent on upgrading the club’s situation between the pipes.

The Sens thought they had their man last summer when previous GM Pierre Dorion inked Joonas Korpisalo to a five-year, $20MM contract in free agency. The 30-year-old’s market value was at an all-time high after a strong stint to finish 2022-23 with the Kings, but he was unable to keep it going in Ottawa in his first full season as a true starter.

His 49 starts and 21 wins were career-highs, but there wasn’t much else to write home about his season. Korpisalo’s .890 SV% and 3.27 GAA both ranked near the bottom of the list of starters, and his -16.1 goals saved above expected was second-worst in the league to Chicago’s Arvid Söderblom, per MoneyPuck.

With new management in town and a clear directive to end the Sens’ seven-year playoff drought, one season of below-average play appears enough for a serious change to be considered. They’ve been “one of the most aggressive teams” in trade discussions for Flames netminder Jacob Markström, a league executive told Garrioch, and they’ve also contacted the Bruins about trading for 2023 Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark.

Even with the salary cap’s upper limit increasing to a record $88MM, the Sens may find themselves in a little bit of a cap crunch this summer. They’ve got $12.5MM in projected space with anywhere from five to seven roster spots to fill, including a new deal for pending RFA Shane Pinto. Offloading Korpisalo with four years left on his deal may be unrealistic in a goalie trade, but repurposing backup Anton Forsberg’s $2.75MM in a trade, along with many other parts for a starter, could help ease any financial considerations.

They’re not viewed as the favorites for either Markström or Ullmark, though. The Devils have positioned themselves as the frontrunner in Markström talks. While it’s not clear who’s put together the most competitive offer to the Bruins for Ullmark, he’s got a 16-team no-trade list. The stuck-in-low-gear Senators might very well be on it. Even if Markström wasn’t so closely tied to New Jersey, he boasts a full no-move clause and could block a trade.

Nonetheless, it would be smart to count the Sens in for nearly every netminder who finds himself on the block this summer.

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