Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Three days, three games and four points later, Andrew Campbell could call it a successful debut weekend.
Last Wednesday, the Ottawa Senators announced that they had relieved David Bell of his post as Belleville’s head coach. Campbell, a long-time AHL defenseman in his second season as an assistant coach with the Senators, suddenly had a new assignment: Ottawa appointed him the interim head coach of their AHL affiliate.
The move came just be before the Sens had to hit the road to start a three-in-three weekend with a visit to Rochester on Friday. Then it was back across the border for a Saturday matinee in Toronto before closing out a home-and-home with the rival Marlies.
The AHL road is a familiar place for Campbell, who played 719 games in the league between 2008 and 2019 with affiliates of the Los Angeles Kings, Arizona Coyotes, Toronto Maple Leafs and Chicago Blackhawks. He also played 42 games in the NHL.
A leader across all of his stops, Campbell made a quick move into coaching, joining the Ontario Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs as an assistant in 2021. He took the Belleville opportunity in July 2024.
In-season coaching changes in the AHL typically come when an NHL team shakes up its coaching staff and promotes a staff member from its AHL affiliate. In Belleville’s case, though, a 2-8-2-0 slide preceded Ottawa opting to shake up its AHL operation. Belleville’s first-year general manager Matt Turek spent time as GM in Hamilton, his tenure overlapping with Campbell’s.
With a bit of practice time, a bus ride and a morning skate, it was time for Campbell to lead the B-Sens behind the bench.
Belleville went into Rochester and secured a point in a 3-2 overtime loss on Friday. The next day, the Sens saw a 2-0 lead dwindle away before Lassi Thomson’s tally with 1:57 to go in regulation got the game to OT again. It finished in a 4-3 defeat, but a point earned is a point earned for a team trying to regain its footing.
Back home the following afternoon at CAA Arena, the Senators hit back hard. They took leads of 2-1 and 5-2 before turning the game into a rout and tying a franchise record for goals in an 8-4 victory.
“The first 24 hours were definitely a whirlwind,” Campbell said before his first game in his new post. “The phone’s been pretty busy over the last little bit, which is all good.
“We’ve got a really good team in that room.”
Sunday’s 8-4 decision will still be fresh in both teams’ minds when the feisty rivalry resumes with a Boxing Day matinee at Scotiabank Arena, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Belleville has slipped one point ahead of the Marlies in the North Division, and through the upheaval they are still just six points in back of co-leaders Syracuse and Laval.
Campbell had been through many of those three-in-three weekends as a player. By Sunday evening, he knew what his players had just been through, especially given the all-divisional slate.
“It’s a long weekend,” Campbell said after his first head-coaching win. “For the guys to put forth the effort that they did, [I am] just proud of them in that room there.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.