Belleville Senators coach Andrew Campbell expects 'deepest lineup' farm team has seen in years

Kasper Halttunen of the San Jose Sharks takes a shot during a pre-season game against the Anaheim ducks in 2025. Photo by Sean M. Haffey /GETTY IMAGES

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Turnover is the nature of the beast in the American Hockey League, and the Belleville Senators have seen their fair share.

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Just seven forwards — no defencemen, no goalies — played both Belleville’s season opener in 2024-25 and its final game in 2025-26.

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Successful farm teams see a number of their players graduate to the National Hockey League the following fall; unsuccessful teams are ripped apart by upper management. There are always new faces coming in, and 2026-27 will be no different for the Ottawa Senators’ AHL affiliate.

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Coach Andrew Campbell believes Sens general manager Steve Staios, Belleville general manager Matt Turek and manager of hockey operations Sean McCauley “did a great job of bringing in some really good veteran players that are really good players at American League level.”

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“Whether (these players) end up cracking Ottawa in that depth position, or they come down and be high impact players for us,” he told the Ottawa Citizen, “it’s the deepest lineup — projected lineup, I should say — that we’ve had here in Belleville in a while.

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“It’s an exciting time. We should have a competitive team, for sure.”

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Projected forward lines

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Blake Montgomery — Eskild Bakke Olsen — Oskar Pettersson

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Tyler Boucher — Xavier Bourgault — Kasper Halttunen

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Lucas Ellinas — Sammy Blais — Philippe Daoust

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Hayden Hodgson — Ryan Suzuki — Philip Tomasino

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Kurtis MacDermid

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Projected defence pairings

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Jorian Donovan — Cameron Crotty

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Samuel Bolduc — Christian Kyrou

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Tomas Hamara — Hoyt Stanley

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Matthew Andonovski — Djibril Toure

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Projected goaltenders

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Kevin Reidler

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Jackson Parsons

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(Bold indicates player entering first full season with organization)

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In 2025-26, the shiny new toy in Belleville was blue chip defenceman Carter Yakemchuk, who very well could be a full-time NHLer by the end of the summer. (Arthur Kaliyev led the AHL with 40 goals, but it was evident rather early in the season that the big club wasn’t interested in his services.)

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This coming season, there are several storylines worth following closely on the farm.

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Sens draft picks Montgomery (117th overall, 2024), Ellinas (104th overall, 2024), Andonovski (140th overall, 2023), Stanley (108th overall, 2023) and Reidler (151st overall, 2022) each are beginning their entry-level contracts.

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“We have a lot of high-character guys, which is what we really prioritize here,” Campbell said. “The culture and the environment, it’s extremely important. We’ve got some good young kids coming in, some kids who have just won a Memorial Cup there in Kitchener (Ellinas and Andonovski). Some kids coming from college, like Stanley and Montgomery, who are really good prospects.”

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Some off-season additions will look to make good first impressions. Halttunen, arriving in the deal with the San Jose Sharks that brought William Eklund to Ottawa, is a former 36th-overall pick with a wicked one-timer and a big frame and his entire pro career ahead of him at age 21.