Tomas Hamara is the Ottawa Senators Prospect of the Week for Nov 19-25 after scoring three points in three games with the Brantford Bulldogs last week. The Czech defenceman has been remarkably consistent this season; in his 14 games in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), he’s gone just three games without a point and only finished three games with a negative plus/minus score. But this week, he stood above the rest with a goal and two assists, extending his point streak to four games.
Hamara Making a Statement in 2024-25
It may have been surprising to see Hamara re-assigned to the Bulldogs in October after he made his American Hockey League (AHL) debut last season with the Belleville Senators, but he suffered a season-ending injury on Feb. 9, limiting his development time in the pros. Rather than keep him in Belleville to struggle for minutes on the bottom pairing, Ottawa decided that his best path forward was returning to the Bulldogs for his final year of junior eligibility. “They just told me to come here and dominate,” he said following the reassignment, “be the best player every day, every practice and every game, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Hamara took those words to heart because he has been nothing short of spectacular for the Bulldogs this season, who were relying on two defensive-minded defenders to man their top pair. With Hamara, though, Brantford’s blue line became exponentially more dangerous. No matter who played on his right side, whether that was Owen Protz, Noah Roberts, or St. Louis Blues’ first-rounder Adam Jiricek, the pairing made things happen.
That was never more evident than this past week where Hamara was a driving force behind the Bulldogs’ two wins. Against the Peterborough Petes on Nov. 21, he made a slick little play to get the puck into the offensive zone and create space for Luca Testa, who drove to the net without much resistance and passed it to Aiden O’Donnell to give Brantford a 1-0 lead early in the period. It was a dominant game from the whole team, but Hamara finished with the second-most shots, just behind leading scorer Nick Lardis.
Related: Ottawa Senators Prospect of the Week – Lucas Ellinas
The Bulldogs hosted the Oshawa Generals the following night, and Beckett Sennecke put the visitors up to an early 2-0 lead, but Hamara got Brantford on the board with a big wrist shot while on the powerplay. Although he didn’t add any more points during the game, his unit scored twice more on the powerplay and once at even strength to tie up the game.
Hamara hammers it home on the power play to cut the lead to 1!🚨 #BFD | #OHL#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/gnYddflEmB
— Brantford Bulldogs (@BulldogsOHL) November 23, 2024
The Bulldogs’ final game last week came on Saturday, Nov. 23, when the Kingston Frontenacs came to town. While the game quickly got away from Brantford and ended with a 4-1 loss, Hamara was once again making things happen, assisting Lardis on the opening goal and finishing with four shots to lead the team.
After his last three games, Hamara now sits at two goals and 13 points in 14 games, putting him in the top 25 defencemen in points per game. He’s also all but guaranteed to break his previous OHL career high of two goals and 17 points set back in his rookie season in 2022-23 with the Kitchener Rangers. Right now, he’s on pace to hit eight goals and 54 points, which would make him the third highest-scoring defenceman in Bulldogs’ history and ahead of Jorian Donovan. If including the Belleville Bulls franchise records, which became the Hamilton (now Brantford) Bulldogs in 2015-16, he’d be tied for 10th and just shy of P.K. Subban’s 56-point 17-year-old season. That’s dominance if I ever saw it.
Senators Prospects Honourable Mentions & Check-Ins
Two-time Prospect of the Week Carter Yakemchuk continues to wrack up points with the Calgary Hitmen. Even though he played just one game last week, he still assisted the first goal and scored the game-winner to help beat the Victoria Royals, earning himself the game’s third star. Fellow member of the two-time club Lucas Ellinas had a bit of an off week, putting up just one assist in three games with the OHL’s Rangers, but Eerik Wallenius bounced back after a long slump, adding two assists in two games.
Challenging Hamara for the title this week was Blake Montgomery, who finally scored his first OHL goal last week with the London Knights, and he made sure to make it a beauty, weaving in and out of three Saginaw Spirit players before firing a powerful backhander from almost on the red line. He’s struggled to find his place after leaving the Lincoln Stars in the United States Hockey League (USHL), but he seems to be starting to find his rhythm.
Belleville had a tougher week last week, splitting their home-and-home series with the Laval Rocket with a win and a loss. Cole Reinhardt remained the B-Sens’ best player, scoring a goal and an assist in the two matchups, but Jamieson Rees finally shook his slump and scored his first goal of the season. Philippe Daoust also scored his first since the season opener, while Xavier Bourgault added his third of the season. While it’s not much, it’s promising to see the scoring spread across the roster, just like it’s encouraging to see several prospects in the running for the top prospect honours each week.
Tune in next week to see who stood above the rest.
