Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Options Author
Three days, three video games and 4 factors later, Andrew Campbell may name it a profitable debut weekend.
Final Wednesday, the Ottawa Senators introduced that they’d relieved David Bell of his publish as Belleville’s head coach. Campbell, a long-time AHL defenseman in his second season as an assistant coach with the Senators, out of the blue had a brand new task: Ottawa appointed him the interim head coach of their AHL affiliate.
The transfer got here simply be earlier than the Sens needed to hit the highway to start out a three-in-three weekend with a go to to Rochester on Friday. Then it was again throughout the border for a Saturday matinee in Toronto earlier than closing out a home-and-home with the rival Marlies.
The AHL highway is a well-known place for Campbell, who performed 719 video games within the league between 2008 and 2019 with associates of the Los Angeles Kings, Arizona Coyotes, Toronto Maple Leafs and Chicago Blackhawks. He additionally performed 42 video games within the NHL.
A pacesetter throughout all of his stops, Campbell made a fast transfer into teaching, becoming a member of the Ontario Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs as an assistant in 2021. He took the Belleville alternative in July 2024.
In-season teaching adjustments within the AHL sometimes come when an NHL crew shakes up its teaching employees and promotes a employees member from its AHL affiliate. In Belleville’s case, although, a 2-8-2-0 slide preceded Ottawa opting to shake up its AHL operation. Belleville’s first-year basic supervisor Matt Turek hung out as GM in Hamilton, his tenure overlapping with Campbell’s.
With a little bit of apply time, a bus journey and a morning skate, it was time for Campbell to guide the B-Sens behind the bench.
Belleville went into Rochester and secured a degree in a 3-2 additional time loss on Friday. The following day, the Sens noticed a 2-0 lead dwindle away earlier than Lassi Thomson’s tally with 1:57 to go in regulation acquired the sport to OT once more. It completed in a 4-3 defeat, however a degree earned is a degree earned for a crew attempting to regain its footing.
Again dwelling the next afternoon at CAA Area, the Senators hit again exhausting. They took leads of 2-1 and 5-2 earlier than turning the sport right into a rout and tying a franchise report for targets in an 8-4 victory.
“The primary 24 hours have been positively a whirlwind,” Campbell said before his first game in his new post. “The telephone’s been fairly busy during the last little bit, which is all good.
“We’ve acquired a very good crew in that room.”
Sunday’s 8-4 resolution will nonetheless be recent in each groups’ minds when the feisty rivalry resumes with a Boxing Day matinee at Scotiabank Area, dwelling of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Belleville has slipped one level forward of the Marlies within the North Division, and thru the upheaval they’re nonetheless simply six factors in again of co-leaders Syracuse and Laval.
Campbell had been by way of lots of these three-in-three weekends as a participant. By Sunday night, he knew what his gamers had simply been by way of, particularly given the all-divisional slate.
“It’s a protracted weekend,” Campbell said after his first head-coaching win. “For the fellows to place forth the trouble that they did, [I am] simply pleased with them in that room there.”
On the American Hockey League beat for 20 years, TheAHL.com options author Patrick Williams additionally presently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a daily contributor on SiriusXM NHL Community Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his excellent protection of the league in 2016.
