For the second time in the past week, there is a head-coaching change behind an AHL bench.

The Ottawa Senators fired Belleville Senators head coach David Bell on Wednesday morning. Assistant coach Andrew Campbell will replace Bell in an interim capacity while assistant coach Stefan Legein and goaltending coach Paul Gibson will remain in their current roles.

Bell's dismissal is AHL's second head-coaching change in the past week. Last Friday the Carolina Hurricanes replaced Cam Abbott with interim head coach Spiros Anastas.

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At 11-14-3-0, Belleville is fifth in the North Division and had won just two of its past 12 games (2-8-2-0) following a 9-6-3-0 start.

“We are constantly evaluating ways to improve our organization and felt the timing was right for a fresh voice and approach in Belleville,” Ottawa general manager Steve Staios said in a written statement.

Bell, who came to Belleville as an assistant coach before the 2019-20 season, had taken over as interim head coach in February 2023 following Troy Mann’s dismissal. The team missed the Calder Cup Playoffs that year. After being appointed the team’s full-time head coach in May 2023, he led the B-Sens to the postseason in 2024, winning a first-round series against the Toronto Marlies. The team missed the postseason again last spring. He finished his Belleville tenure with a 97-78-15-11 record.

Campbell, 37, came to the B-Sens as an assistant coach last season. A highly respected defenseman and leader during his 11 seasons at the pro level, Campbell played 719 AHL games, plus 42 more in the NHL, before retiring in 2019. He quickly moved into coaching, joining the OHL’s then-Hamilton Bulldogs as an assistant coach in 2021 and spending three seasons with that team.

Belleville had struggled defensively this season and ranks second-to-last in the AHL in both goals-against (3.75 per game) and shots-against (33 per game). Some of those struggles have come in net as well. Offseason signing Hunter Shepard has not played since Nov. 14.

Mads Søgaard is 1-6-2 | 3.81 | .874 in 11 games while Jackson Parsons is 4-3-1 | 3.44 | .890 in his first AHL season. Goaltending has been a challenge for Belleville in recent seasons. The team went through 10 goaltenders in 2022-23. Last season’s number-one, Leevi Meriläinen, has spent most of this season with Ottawa and has made just three appearances with Belleville.

In this 12-game slump, they have allowed 56 goals, an average of 4.67 goals per game.

Campbell and the B-Sens will jump quickly into a busy schedule. They visit the Rochester Americans on Friday (7 p.m. ET on FloHockey) before a home-and-home series with Toronto to close out their weekend.

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