Senators Reassign Carter Yakemchuk

The Senators announced this morning that they’ve reassigned defense prospect Carter Yakemchuk to AHL Belleville. His demotion likely means Dennis Gilbert could be an option tomorrow against the Panthers after he returned to practice in a regular jersey earlier in the week.

Ottawa likely wasn’t planning on giving Yakemchuk, the seventh overall pick in 2024, an extended NHL look until next season. He’s had a rocky defensive performance in Belleville this year. Nonetheless, their rash of injuries on the blue line forced their hand. Yakemchuk stepped into four straight contests for the Sens after his late-March recall before landing on the injured list himself because he entered concussion protocol. After missing the last four, his demotion today implies he’d passed the necessary tests and is cleared to return.

Yakemchuk debuted with a bang, recording a goal, assist, and a +2 rating in just 12:46 of ice time in a key regulation win over the Red Wings back on March 24. In the three games following, his performances were considerably more measured. He was held off the scoresheet and logged a -3 rating, three shots on goal, two blocks, and five giveaways with zero takeaways.

The 20-year-old righty’s possession numbers were ghastly, as well. Despite receiving extremely sheltered usage – 81% of his 5-on-5 starts came in the offensive end – the Sens only controlled 43.4% of shot attempts with Yakemchuk on the ice.

It’s clear that, with a playoff berth on the line, the Sens would prefer not to have such an inexperienced, albeit high-ceiling name, in the lineup for their final four games. The club’s top blue line prospect has 10 goals and 36 points in 50 games with Belleville this season to lead the club in scoring among rearguards, but also owns a team-worst -30 rating. As such, they’ll likely look to get him at least one more full year of defensive development in the AHL before trying to work him into a full-time role in 2027-28.

Gilbert, 29, had been out for the last nine games with an upper-body injury. He was summoned from Belleville in early March after Jake Sanderson went down with his injury. While Sanderson’s returned, Thomas Chabot and Tyler Kleven are now sidelined, so the veteran lefty will stay up for now.

Gilbert’s return is of particular importance as the Sens haven’t been able to dress multiple left-shot defenders in a game since Chabot fractured his right forearm back on March 23. Kleven was their only healthy lefty after that, and Sanderson didn’t return until after Kleven went down with an upper-body injury.

Now in his seventh NHL season, Gilbert posted one assist and an even rating across six games last month while averaging 11:22 per night. The 6’2″, 216-lb shutdown threat owns a career 3-18–21 scoring line and a -18 rating in 117 career NHL appearances with the Blackhawks, Avalanche, Flames, Sabres, and Senators.