Five Things You Need to Know About the AHL and the Senators

Mayor Taso Christopher and Ottawa and Belleville Senators owner Eugene Melnyk hold up a Senators jersey at a press conference where both announced American Hockey League hockey would be coming to Belleville. Photo by Matthew Murray, QNet News

By Matthew Murray

BELLEVILLE – Cheers shook the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre Monday when the City of Belleville and the Ottawa Senators announced high-level hockey would be coming back to the city.

The Binghamton Senators will call Belleville home next winter. While the city has had junior and minor league hockey teams, it has never hosted an American Hockey League team before. Here are five things you need to know about the AHL and the Binghamton Senators:

1. Top Development League Under the NHL

According to the American Hockey League website, the AHL is the “highest-skilled development league” under the National Hockey League, with most players having already been drafted and signed to NHL teams. It was founded in 1936. Every AHL team has an NHL affiliate where the NHL team can send players down to develop and call up players to join its roster.

2. 30 Teams, 76 Games, 1 Cup

Thirty teams, four of which are Canadian, play 76 games from October to April each year. Unlike other leagues, teams in the AHL only play teams in the same conference until the Calder Cup championship finals.The championship is named after the first president of the NHL, Frank Calder. Binghamton won its first and only Calder Cup in 2011. The Binghamton Sens had a 31-38-7 record last season, finishing 14th in the eastern conference.

3. 14 Years in the AHL and Counting

The Senators have been in Binghamton, N.Y., since 2002. The Ottawa Senators also had farm teams under the same name in Charlottetown, P.E.I. and New Haven, Conn., in the early ’90s before switching to other affiliates later in the decade. Much like how Ottawa will call up players from Binghamton, the Binghamton Sens also are able to call up players from the Wichita Thunder of the East Coast Hockey League.

4. All-Star Alumni

The team has produced some of the biggest names on the Senators’ lineup in recent years. Current Sens fan favourites Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone and Chris Neil all spent time in Binghamton before their time in the NHL. Former B-Sens players whom Ottawa fans might recognize include Jason Spezza, Anton Volchenkov, Ray Emery, Ben Bishop, Robin Lehner and Mika Zibanejad.

5. North Division Rivalries

Binghamton currently plays in the AHL North Division of the Eastern Conference against the Syracuse Crunch, Rochester Americans, Utica Comets and Albany Devils. The St. John’s Icecaps and the Toronto Marlies – the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs farm teams – are the two Canadian teams playing in the division. However, with the Sens moving to Belleville and St. John’s moving to Laval, Que., the AHL may plan to realign the divisions. Expect heated rivalries between the two and Toronto to develop once all three are finally together along the 401 corridor.