Belleville Senators Acquire Kidney, O'Rourke From Montreal in Deadline Deals

The Belleville Senators worked the phones ahead of the AHL trade deadline, completing two separate deals with the Montreal organization on March 13 that brought forward Riley Kidney and defender Ryan O'Rourke to Belleville. The cost: goaltender Hunter Shepard, forward Jake Chiasson, and future considerations.

Kidney is the headliner. The 22-year-old Halifax native was Montreal's second-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft, taken 63rd overall, and he's put together a productive ECHL season with the Trois-Rivières Lions: 33 points on 11 goals and 22 assists in 46 games. His AHL exposure this year has been limited to six games and a single assist with the Laval Rocket, but the underlying numbers at the ECHL level suggest a player worth a longer look. Over his three-year pro career, Belleville's official release credits him with 37 points in 127 AHL games, all with Laval, though other reports have the figure at 36 points in 121 games. Before turning pro, Kidney piled up 281 points in 218 QMJHL games split between Acadie-Bathurst and Gatineau, and he was part of Canada's gold-medal team at the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship.

The price Belleville paid for Kidney was a package that made sense given both players' trajectories this season. Shepard, 30, posted a 6-7-2 record with a .885 save percentage and 3.65 goals-against average in 15 AHL appearances. He did get one NHL look this season, entering in relief for Ottawa on January 5 and allowing two goals on 12 shots in a 5-3 loss to Detroit. His NHL career line across six total appearances, including five starts with Washington, reads 2-3-1 with a .863 save percentage and 3.88 GAA. Undrafted and a two-time Calder Cup champion with the Hershey Bears, Shepard arrives in Montreal's system with legitimate minor-league pedigree, even if his numbers in Belleville this year weren't overwhelming.

Chiasson's departure is harder to argue against. The 22-year-old Abbotsford native, originally a fourth-round pick of the Edmonton Oilers in 2021 and acquired by Ottawa along with Xavier Bourgault in July 2024 for Roby Jarventie and a fourth-round pick, managed just one assist in 20 AHL games with Belleville this season. He showed more life in the ECHL with the Allen Americans, producing eight points, though sources conflict on whether that came in 14 or 16 games. Either way, the return wasn't matching the investment.

O'Rourke, the defensive piece of the second deal, cost Belleville only future considerations. No statistical details on the defender were available at the time of the announcement, making it a low-risk depth add with the AHL regular season winding down.

The timing looks unusual on the surface because the NHL trade deadline had already passed a week earlier. But the NHL deadline governs roster eligibility for NHL play and the playoffs. None of the players involved will suit up in the NHL this season, which means AHL and ECHL movement remains fair game right up to the AHL's own cutoff. It's a mechanism that lets organizations shuffle the deck on players who need a new environment, and Kidney fits that description precisely: a former second-round pick stuck in the ECHL who gets a fresh opportunity to re-establish himself at the AHL level with a different organization's jersey on his back.