Two of Ottawa's young stars asked to be sent to the AHL last season
It's not often that hockey players good enough to play in the NHL will ask to be sent to the minors. Getting shipped to the AHL is generally viewed as a demotion and something you try to avoid at all costs. However, Ottawa Senators General Manager Pierre Dorion has revealed to the Ottawa Sun that two of his young stars asked to be sent to Bellville of the AHL last season.
"Thomas Chabot and Brady Tkachuk both asked if they could be part of the Belleville, which no one knows about, and that just shows how much they're invested in the organization,” said Dorion “We didn't think we should just parachute people in, either. Both guys wanted to play for Belleville at the end of the year."
The reason both asked is because the Sens weren't making the NHL playoffs, while Bellville was sitting in first place in the North Division with a 38-20-5 record and 81 points in 63 games when the AHL went on pause March 12th. Both Chabot and Tkachuk wanted to help their minor league team take a run at the Calder Cup. Ultimately, Chabot had too many games in the NHL (205) to qualify and the organization wanted Tkachuk to continue his training in Ottawa. Of course, none of it mattered in the end as the AHL did not complete the 2019-20 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It just tells what kind of younger, character people we have up here and what could have been with Belleville," added Dorion.
“The thing that this organization lost the most on was the playoff run that Belleville could have had,” Dorion said. “That is invaluable experience that we could have gotten a true gauge, when all the chips were down, which younger players showed up."
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YESTERDAY
JUNE 6, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Mitch Marner | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jordan Staal | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Brayden McNabb | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Martinook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Karlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jaccob Slavin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Logan Stankoven | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||