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Having capped off a successful D+2 season with a Memorial Cup championship, defenseman Jorian Donovan began his professional hockey career with the AHL’s Belleville Senators in the hopes of securing a key role on their blueline. Despite some initial struggles, resulting in his dropping four spots from last year, he appears to have accomplished this goal, given the current state of the Belleville roster.

Drafted in the 5th round back in 2022, Donovan quickly progressed at both ends of the ice to become one of the Senators’ better defensive prospects, culminating in him being the club’s only member of Canada’s World Junior squad in 2024. Despite losing to Czechia in the quarterfinals, you could call it a failure for some of their more high-profile first-round picks, but for a left-shot defenseman from the fifth round, being named to the team is a great accomplishment in of itself.

Arriving in Belleville for his first full season, Donovan initially had a ton of competition for ice time. Ahead of him on the left side in terms of experience were Donovan Sebrango, Jeremy Davies, and Filip Roos, and after being a healthy scratch for most of October, he began to work his way into a more consistent role.

After playing his first 20 games with zero points, 31 PIMS, and a -13 rating, Donovan began to turn things around. The next 24 games saw him get his first 4 AHL points (all assists), with 29 PIMs and an even rating. Finally, in Game 45, he scored his first professional goal against the Laval Rocket.

Including that game, he had his strongest stretch in the final 20: 3 goals, 5 assists, 23 PIMS, and a +4 rating. When it comes to development, the overall body of work isn’t as important as where the player is at the end of the season. All of these games carry the same weight, but even with weaker results, those earlier games can have a positive impact. Compared to forwards who earn their salary based on production (and can lose confidence with a lengthy cold streak), defensemen value is more nuanced, and prospects can learn from their mistakes on the fly without worrying about production, so long as they aren’t overwhelmed with a large sample of NHL games.

2016 6th-rounder Maxime Lajoie is an example of a prospect who played very well in his first handful of NHL games, only to falter as the season went on. The Sens brass was enamoured with his early production, which in their mind gave him more rope to work with, when in reality, he was struggling to keep up as early as mid-November. He should’ve been returned to the minors after 15 games, but he wound up playing 56, because his production mattered a lot more to the coaching staff than it should’ve.

This past season, Donovan ranked 5th on the team, and 3rd on the blueline, with 1.30 penalty minutes per game. For established NHLers, PIMs are almost strictly negative, but for prospects, they’re also an indicator of a player adding physical elements to his game, which most defensemen need to succeed in a top-4 role. Learning to balance physical defending with staying out of the box is of course an important step, but it’s one that comes after making that initial adjustment.

At first glance, 83 PIMs seems undisciplined, but you might be surprised to know that 39 of them were coincidental – including 7 fighting majors. He’s 6’2 and 200 pounds, and isn’t a one-dimensional puck mover, but even then, that’s a lot more punches than I’d expect to see thrown from a player of his profile.

Jorian Donovan held his own in a scrap with Jeffrey Viel, a pretty tough customer.

Donovan dropped the mitts about three times a season in the OHL, so this isn’t a totally foreign part of his game. I’m sure this made an impression on coach Bell.#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/Xa4bSqHhAb

— Sens Prospects (@SensProspects) November 1, 2024

The worst kinds of penalties for a defenseman are those which result from being out of position or losing coverage – hooking, holding the stick, and tripping are good examples. Unlike cross-checking, interference, and roughing, which are routinely overlooked as part of “playoff hockey”, these infractions are called more consistently regardless of whether its November or May. Donovan was penalized only 7 times across 64 games for those three.

Heading into 2025-26, the organization has yet to replace the departures of Davies and Roos, so Donovan currently only has Sebrango – yeah, good luck following any piece involving those two – ahead of him this year. Top-4 minutes are up for grabs, and I’d be interested in seeing Jorian paired with Max Guenette, along with a top pair of Sebrango and Carter Yakemchuk.

New Belleville GM Matt Turek is certainly a big part of the decision on how big of a role Donovan should get, and there’s additional familiarity from Turek’s tenure as GM of the Brantmilton Bulldogs.

Returning to this Scott Wheeler article from last year brought me some much-needed comfort after looking at Donovan’s stat line – on top of his incredible presence as a leader and professional on and off the ice, he’s a well-rounded two-way player. High-end production, like from his D+1 season, isn’t his calling card, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing if it didn’t translate to the AHL right away. I’m excited to see how he does in a larger role in second full season.