Garrett Pilon is Belleville Senators’ “Mr. Everything”

Garrett Pilon played the role of hero for the Belleville Senators, depositing a rebound off Stephen Halliday’s shot 2:17 into overtime to give his team a 4-3 win, and more importantly, their first playoff series victory since leaving Binghamton in 2017.

The Ottawa Senators‘ American League affiliate won their opening round series in a Battle of Ontario against the Toronto Marlies two games to one.

In 2019-20 the “BSens” were sitting in first place in the North Division when the season was canceled due to Covid in March. Belleville qualified for the best two-of-three opening round two seasons ago, but were swept by Rochester.

Pilon’s OT goal capped a great series performance.  Though Game Two ended in an extra time loss, it was Pilon’s marker with 19 seconds remaining which sent Belleville to overtime. The 26 year-old currently has three goals, one assist in the postseason, and hopes to improve on his total when the Senators meet the Cleveland Monsters with Game One of their best-of-five matchup scheduled for Wednesday in Belleville.

Fresh off signing a one-year, two-way contract by the Ottawa Senators after earning a Calder Cup ring with the Hershey Bears last season, Pilon became one of Belleville’s most consistent players in the 2023-24 campaign registering 18 goals, 29 assists in 62 games, earning the forward team Most Valuable Player honours.

Belleville head coach David Bell said in a media release, “Garrett has been Mr. Everything for us. He plays in all situations, power play, penalty kill, overtime, etc. He’s scored some huge goals for us and won some very important faceoffs at critical times in games. Any line he’s on, he’s produced all year and made that group better.”

After Sunday’s dramatic win, Bell credited Ottawa Senators assistant general manager Ryan Bowness in bringing the Washington Capitals 2016 87th overall draft selection to Belleville.

“He comes as advertised, a credit to Ryan Bowness. He identifed we needed some guys in here with playoff experience. He’s a guy fresh off a Calder Cup. We looked at his stats with Hershey last year. They were just okay, but then in the playoffs he was almost a point per game guy, so that was someone we went and identified. They stepped up and signed him. Now here is making big plays and scoring big goals.”