Another Monday Morning Prospect Update beginning with a signing. This week it was Mason Lohrei who inked a two-year entry-level contract with the Bruins. The contract comes with an NHL base salary of $832,500 and $80,000 in the AHL and a $92,500 signing bonus in each season. Lohrei has the potential to earn $250,000 in bonuses in the second year of the deal. There are no bonuses in the first year.
Jackson Edward and the London Knights took care of Ryan Mast and the Sarnia Sting in the OHL Western Conference Championship series and captured the Wayne Gretzky Trophy setting up a final with the Eastern Conference Champions and Bobby Orr Trophy winning Peterborough Petes. The winner will challenge for the Memorial Cup in Kamloops, British Columbia between May 26 and June 4, 2023.
Game one took place on Thursday with London’s number one goaltender Brett Brochu (undrafted free agent) still on the shelf with an injury yet, they still took this one 3-0. It wasn’t Edward’s best game. He had some defensive lapses where Zach Bowen (2023 draft eligible) had to bail him out – some in spectacular fashion. He had a strong transition game and finished a plus-2 and was particularly strong on the PK.
Game two went on Sunday and it was a very good performance from Edward at both ends of the ice even though he didn’t hit the score sheet. But they dropped this one 5-3 despite outshooting the Petes 54-27. Defensively, Edward was blocking shots, breaking up plays at the blueline and consistently taking his man out. He wasn’t on the ice for any of the 5 goals against. At the other end, he kept plays alive at the blue line, made some great plays and had two shots on goal.
The series is now even at one apiece and shifts to Peterborough for games 3 and 4 beginning Monday night with game two going Wednesday night.
Through half a dozen exhibition games, Dans Locmelis proved he belonged on the Latvian roster for the 2023 IIHF Men’s World Hockey Championships. Doing it as a 19-year-old (January 21, 2004) is even more impressive. There are only seven skaters younger than Locmelis of the 352 skaters taking part and just 11 teenagers in the tournament. Jakub Zboril will be playing for Czechia and Peter Cehlarik, who is still Bruins’ property will skate for Slovakia. Restricted free agent Kai Wissmann will be manning the blueline for Germany.
For Locmelis, this is a learning experience and more for preparation in future years for Latvia. Don’t put too much emphasis on this tournament.
In Latvia’s tournament opener on Friday, they dropped a 6-0 decision to Canada. The game was actually closer than the score indicates. For Locmelis, he finished the game a minus-1 with one shot on goal, was 1 for 3 in the faceoff circle and had a total of 9:02 time on ice with zero time in the third period.
Also on Friday, Czechia defeated Slovakia in their opener by a score of 3-2. Zboril finished with 3 shots on goal in 10:36 time on ice and was a minus-1. Germany lost their opener to Sweden 1-0. Wissmann had 20:21 TOI (only 30 seconds less than Moritz Seider) with zeroes across the board and two PIM.
Day two of the tournament saw Latvia fall 2-1 to Slovakia to drop their second game. Locmelis did not get any TOI in this game. Germany also lost their second game, this time by a 4-3 score to Finland. Wissmann had a goal on his only shot on target in 20:07 TOI.
On day 3, Czechia defeated Kazakhstan 5-1. Zboril had a goal on 4 shots in 12:16 TOI and finished a plus-1. If you haven’t seen the goal, try and look it up. It was quite the snipe.
In other news…
Frederic Brunet was the runner-up for the Emile Bouchard Trophy given to the Defenceman of the Year in the QMJHL. Tristan Luneau (Anaheim Ducks – 2nd round, 2022) took home the honors. I truly believe had Brunet spent the entire season with Victoriaville, he would have taken home the award.
Former Bruins 7th round pick (2010) Maxim Chudinov signed a one-year deal with the Admirals of the KHL. The 33-year-old defenceman has played 611 KHL games over 14 seasons and has 70 career goals and 134 assists. He has appeared in 99 career playoff games with 8 goals and 26 assists and has won 3 championships. Chudinov never showed any interest in coming to North America which adds to the notion that the Bruins don’t do well drafting Russians.
Coming up later this week is my prospect rankings on the blog. Expect some surprises and some disappointments.
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Dom - Hockey 
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