Graeme Clarke is almost home.
The Ottawa-raised forward, and former Ottawa 67, is now just one phone call away from his boyhood NHL team, after the Ottawa Senators acquired him from the Washington Capitals ahead of the trade deadline on March 6.
“You get traded in the middle of the year and you don’t know what to think,” Clarke told the Ottawa Citizen. “And then when they say ‘Ottawa,’ you kind of get excited for the opportunity. Just (American Hockey League affiliate) Belleville, in a sense, it’s close to home, and for my first game, I had lots of family in and people coming in to watch. Obviously, had a good game.”
Did he ever.
Clarke made his Belleville debut on March 7, a little more than 24 hours after the trade deadline, and following a whirlwind, 17-hour travel day. At home to the Utica Comets, he set up Arthur Kaliyev for the 3-1 goal, won a face-off to get the primary assist on Olle Lycksell’s 4-1 goal, tipped a Carter Yakemchuk point shot to make it 5-1, and scored on his own rebound for the 7-3 final.
Two goals, two assists, four shots and a plus-4 rating.
Is that any good?
Now, he’s followed up that performance with two more multi-point games, totalling nine points (four goals, five assists), 14 shots and a plus-5 rating in three contests with Belleville.
“I’m a better skater now than I was (in junior),” Clarke said. “I feel like I can use my legs to create separation more now, beat guys in different ways. Before, it felt like I was more of a shooter and a scorer. I think I still am now, but I think I can do a lot more things in the defensive zone, neutral zone, just coming up and down the ice a little bit quicker. I kind of rounded out my game in pro.”
Clarke has welcomed this abrupt change of scenery with open arms.
Playing centre for the first time in years, he’s clicking with linemates Lycksell and Tyler Boucher, and, although it’s extremely early, he’s flourishing in a more offensive-minded system.
Belleville is Clarke’s fourth different AHL team in three seasons.
Graeme Clarke Belleville Senators
Selected 80th overall by the New Jersey Devils in the 2019 NHL Draft, he saw just three NHL games in four years with his first franchise, despite racking up 58 AHL points in 2022-23, and 49 in 2023-24.
A promising new beginning with the Minnesota Wild in 2024-25 was foiled by a broken kneecap in training camp, and prior to the trade a week and a half ago, he was playing third-line minutes in Hersey while stuck on the second power play unit due to an abundance of young talent in Washington’s system.
This latest fresh start with the Senators, however, feels different.
How could it not?
Clarke is originally from Waconia, Minnesota — his parents, Chris and Trish, welcomed their first-born while each attending the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry — but moved to Ottawa before the age of 2.
He honed his talents at Walter Baker Sports Centre playing minor hockey for the Nepean Raiders, and later at the Bell Sensplex with the AAA Ottawa Senators. Clarke attended countless Sens games in his youth, watching Daniel Alfredsson’s 400th goal in 2011, witnessing the famous Hamburglar run in 2015, and revelling in some of the most exciting playoff games in franchise history in the 2017 postseason.
The first homecoming of his career happened that year.
Graeme Clarke of the Belleville Senators
While playing for the Toronto Marlboros of the Greater Toronto Hockey League, Clarke was selected sixth overall by the Ottawa 67’s in the OHL Draft.
He would play three seasons for the 67’s, and had 14 points in 18 playoff games en route to the OHL Final in 2019.
Clarke is the eldest child in a hockey-obsessed family that boasts three impeccable players. Brother Brandt, selected eighth overall by the Los Angeles Kings in 2021, is one of the best young defencemen in the NHL, and has spent time on the top pairing with Drew Doughty this season. Sister MacKenzie, who also plays defence, just wrapped up her sophomore season with St. Lawrence University in New York.
Clarke says his father was “instrumental” in helping each of his children learn and love hockey.
And he still is.
Clarke calls his dad after nearly every game. And typically around 1:30 a.m. ET, Brandt rings him from the west coast, a few hours before Chris’ alarm is set to blare (he’s an orthodontist, with clinics in Barrhaven, Kemptville and Iqaluit).
“There’s only ever been a couple calls that I’ve missed, so I expect them,” Chris told the Ottawa Citizen. “For me, it’s really easy to be positive with both of them. It’s not like any stereotype, car-coaching dad or something, because I’m always thinking, like, success comes from positivity and fun ways to do it.”
Chris — who was a point-per-game winger for the Junior B Hamilton Kilty B’s the early 1990s — repeats a few catchy mottos when recounting the lessons he bestowed upon his children, but one particular phrase stands out.
“Hockey is a performance. Put on a show.”
Clarke definitely listened to that one.
He has five lacrosse-style, Michigan goals in competition on video, two of them from his OHL career. And there were more in summer hockey growing up.
“I haven’t gotten any in pro yet, so that might have to happen at one point,” Clarke said.
Proudly exclaimed Chris: “Oh, 100 percent, yeah, I showed him that.”
Now, with his two-way contract expiring at season’s end, the focus is singularly on earning a contract with his childhood team.
“I want to come back,” Clarke said. “I spend my summers in Ottawa, so it’d be kind of cool to hop right in and start skating in camp in Ottawa and get things going that way.
“Being happy about the trade now is great, but then obviously it’s a contract year, in the back of your head. So, you just try and do the best you can in the (12) games we have left here in Belleville. Every day is important for me to kind of show myself and help this team win. We’re on the outside looking in on the playoffs right now, so it’s important to have a good final push for us and hopefully get in.”
Perhaps, Clarke’s previous success at Canadian Tire Centre could help convince general manager Steve Staios to ink the 24-year-old to a new deal this offseason.
It’s possible that he’s the franchise’s only active player to ‘win it all’ at the CTC — at age 10, his Nepean Raiders captured the Bell Capital Cup, with the final being played at the Sens’ home arena.
“It was unreal,” Clarke recalled. “I was on for OT, but I didn’t score. My buddy scored on a breakaway and it was just the coolest thing. We threw the gloves off and everything.
“I think the banner’s still hanging in Walter Baker, too. … My dad plays beer league at Walter Baker and he says it’s still up.”
If the Senators are indeed the right fit for Clarke, Chris says it would be a “dream come true.”
“We have videos,” he said, “of both Graeme and Brandt when they were seven or eight-years-old saying, ‘I absolutely want to play for the Ottawa Senators!’ I can picture that video because we’ve replayed it a couple times over the years.”
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