The Boston Bruins announced their roster for the upcoming rookie camp and the upcoming Prospects Challenge in Buffalo. Joining the Bruins and Sabres in this year’s battle of the prospects are the Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Bruins schedule is: Friday, September 15 versus Pittsburgh at 3:30 pm; Saturday September 16 versus Montreal at 3:30 pm; Monday September 18 vs New Jersey at 10:00 am
Several Bruins prospects will be participating. NCAA players have begun classes and are therefore ineligible to participate. Casper Nassen and Kristian Kostadinski seasons in the J20 Nationell have begun and will not be able to participate. Same goes for Jonathan Myrenberg in the SHL and Roman Bychkov in the KHL. Matthew Poitras, Jackson Edward and a few invites will be taking a leave from their Canadian Hockey League club’s training camps. Reid Dyck is currently out with an injury and unable to participate.
With NCAA players unavailable to them, and USHL players who are committed to the NCAA also not available to them, the Bruins dipped into the undrafted free agent market to fill out their roster while also getting a closer look at potential signees.
Let’s take a quick look at the invites:
William Rousseau
| Position | Goaltender |
| Previous Club | Quebec Remparts |
| Previous League | QMJHL |
| Date of Birth | January 9, 2003 |
| Height / Weight | 6’1” – 187 lbs |
| Nation | Canada |
After leading the Quebec Remparts to a QMJHL Championship and a Memorial Cup Championship, the Remparts shipped Rousseau off to the Rouyn – Noranda Huskies in an offseason trade. But his impact was all over the Remparts Championships.
Rousseau won the Jaques Plante Memorial Trophy as the QMJHL goaltender with the best goals-against-average. He then went on a 16-2 run in the QMJHL playoffs with a 2.22 GAA and .915 save-percentage with one shutout to lead his team to victory. But he wasn’t finished there.
Rousseau went 3-1 in the Memorial Cup and posted a 2.15 GAA and .937 save-percentage with one shut out and was named to the Memorial Cup All Star Team and the most outstanding goaltender in the tournament. He was coached by Patrick Roy.
Rousseau does not have the ideal size for today’s goaltenders. But he works as hard as anyone. He handles the puck extremely well – again, Patrick Roy was his coach – his positioning is excellent, he is always square to the shooters, he absorbs pucks with relative ease eliminating rebounds and he tracks pucks very well. However, he is not very quick on his feet which could be a problem at the pro level.
With Dyck being unavailable along with Philip Svedeback because of his NCAA obligation, invites were inevitable in the blue paint. And remember, the Bruins did invite two goaltenders, Derek Mullahy and Gleb Artsatbanov to this summers Development Camp. The Bruins invited Rousseau to Development Camp but a prior commitment prevented him from attending. That is when they invited him to the Prospect Challenge.
Samuel St-Hilaire
| Position | Goaltender |
| Previous Club | Sherbrooke Phoenix |
| Previous League | QMJHL |
| Date of Birth | May 11, 2004 |
| Height / Weight | 6’2” – 176 lbs |
| Nation | Canada |
During the 2021-2021 season, St Hilaire was a standout for Levis Chevealiers in Quebec’s U18 AAA Hockey Development League bests with a 20-3-0-4 record, 1.79 goals-against-average and .934 save-percentage. Just how dominant was it? No other goaltender posted more that 17 wins, no other goaltender had a GAA under2.01 and no other goaltender had a save-percentage above .919.
St-Hilaire was a surprise in the QMJHL last season. He posted a 21-5-2-1 record, was ninth in the Q with a .903 save-percentage and third with a 2.03 goals-against-average (among 40 goaltenders to play 10-plus games).
St-Hilaire travelled to Nashville for the NHL Entry Draft and expressed some disappointment in not hearing his name called. But immediately following the draft, he received a call from Curtis Sanford, the Toronto Maple Leafs Goaltending Coach inviting him to their development camp, which he accepted. St-Hilaire said other teams had also approached him following the draft.
He is no stranger to putting in the hard and necessary work to improve himself. He also became a leader, as a goaltender and more of that will be expected of him this season as Sherbrooke transitions. His competitiveness, his mobility, his technique and his character are all pluses.
This could turn into one of the top invites of any team’s rookie camps. Could we see a signing much like we did with Kyle Keyser back in 2017? It’s possible especially if the Bruins lose one of Keyser or Michael DiPietro to waivers like they did in 2017 with Malcolm Subban and basically forcing the Bruins into signing Keyser.
Adam Mechura
| Position | Center / Left Wing |
| Previous Club | Tri – City Americans |
| Previous League | WHL |
| Date of Birth | January 31, 2003 |
| Height / Weight | 6’4” – 201 lbs |
| Nation | Czechia |
After some productive seasons in his native Czechia, the Tri-City Americans made Mechura the fourth overall pick in the 2022 Canadian Hockey League Import Draft. He has a wealth of international experience representing Czechia at the U16, U17, U18, U19 and twice at the World Junior Championships.
Mechura appeared in 58 games for the Americans and scored 26 goals while assisting on 26 others. The transition to North America came easy for him and he proved he could produce on the smaller ice.
One of the first things you will notice about Mechura is his size. At 6’4” he stands out. For a big guy, he moves very well with a long and very powerful stride. He’s also a very intelligent player with an uncanny ability to elude checkers. And when his teammates find him open and deliver a pass, he can rip a one-timer with the best of them. He can also rip a wrister usually dropping to one knee and able to beat goaltenders with deadly accuracy. And he is no slouch with the backhand either.
We know to this point that Mechura can produce the offence. But his defensive game has come along very well. He earned the trust of his coaches in Tri-City and earned penalty killing time with them. He became a threat to score in those opportunities as well.
Mechura joined the Arizona Coyotes as an invite for their Rookie Faceoff Tournament (the equivalent of the Bruins Prospect Challenge) in 2022.
Ty Halaburda
| Position | Center |
| Previous Club | Vancouver Giants |
| Previous League | WHL |
| Date of Birth | April 22, 2005 |
| Height / Weight | 5’11” – 180 lbs |
| Nation | Canada |
This is an interesting invite for two reasons: Firstly, Halaburda is eligible to re-enter the draft in 2024 so, unless he signs an NHL deal before his first WHL game this season, he becomes a draft re-entry. Secondly, the Bruins know him well as he played with Fabian Lysell two years ago in the back yard of Bruins Advisor to the GM Scott Bradley.
Halaburda played Prep School hockey in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League from 2018 through to 2021.The Giants selected him in the second round, 32nd overall in the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft. For the most recent NHL Entry Draft he was ranked 89th by Central Scouting (North American Skaters), 135th by McKeen’s Hockey, 168th by FCHockey and 207th by Red Line Report.
While I don’t think he will be a big point producer as a pro – Red Line said “The Venus de Milo statue has better hands” – he does a lot of other things that coaches absolutely love. Despite his size, he plays with a tremendous amount of grit and his work ethic is off the charts. He brings a lot of energy to the game which seems to rub off on his teammates. Talk to anyone with the Giants and they rave about his character.
Halaburda is like a blood hound on the puck. He is always chasing it and around it, disrupting the opposition at every turn. He is not shy about doing the heavy lifting to get the disk back and then letting his teammates to the glorified work on the scoresheet.
What Halaburda will bring to the next level is energy, excellent forecheck, physicality, good penalty killer and a solid defensive game with some secondary scoring in a bottom six role.
Grayden Siepmann
| Position | Right Defence |
| Previous Club | Calgary Hitmen |
| Previous League | WHL |
| Date of Birth | May 26, 2004 |
| Height / Weight | 5’11” – 185 lbs |
| Nation | Canada |
Siepmann has been passed over in the 2022 and 2023 NHL Entry Drafts. He was ranked 79th among North American Skaters for the 2022 draft and unranked for 2023. Why?
He broke onto the WHL scene as a 17-year-old and led the Hitmen in goals (9 goals) and points (25 points) in his first year. He followed that up with 9 goals and 34 assists in his second draft eligible season and represented Canada at the World Junior Championships U-18 where he had 2 goals and an assist in 3 games.
There is no denying the offensive skills Siepmann possesses. He’s a very good skater, strong on his edges, excellent agility and very good at changing direction on a dime. This allows him to be effective on the breakout and in joining the rush. He has a willingness to activate but doesn’t always make the right decision to do so. This can get him into trouble at times and he lacks elite speed to be able to recover.
I don’t have an issue with that because they are coachable things. However, with Siepmann, it’s probably his defensive game that prevented his name from being called out at the drafts. The biggest issue I see is that he is not hard enough on attackers. He tends to back off more than he should and that opens up lanes for the opposition. This too can be a fixable issue with the right coaching, but he has to be willing. And this is exactly why he is invited to camp – to see how bad he wants it.
Julien Beland
| Position | Center/Left Wing |
| Previous Club | Rimouski Oceanic |
| Previous League | QMJHL |
| Date of Birth | July 24, 2003 |
| Height / Weight | 6’3” – 183 lbs |
| Nation | Canada |
The Beland invite has QMJHL scout Alain Bissonnette written all over it. Bissonnette was instrumental in the Bruins drafting Frederic Brunet so he knows him well as Beland and Brunet were teammates with the Rimouski Oceanic.
Beland was first eligible for the NHL Entry Draft in 2021. He sat out the entire 2020-2021 season thanks to COVID-19. He made his QMJHL debut during the 2021-2022 season and after a year off put up a respectable 10 goals and 19 assists. He had a breakout season a year ago scoring 29 goals and 23 assists in 68 games.
Beland is truly a multi positional player who can play both wings, center and defence. For his size, Beland moves very well. He has an ability to push defenders back. He has very good puck skills and is hard to knock off pucks making him a possession monster. You will never question his work ethic. He keeps his feet moving both on the forecheck and the back check. He has a long reach and is able to take away passing lanes as he closes in on the forecheck. He enjoys the physical game and will not shy away from it. He will drive to the net with and without the puck. He’s an excellent net front presence with an uncanny ability to gain body position to block the goaltenders view and clean up loose pucks.
Beland attended the Anaheim Ducks rookie camp last year and played in their prospect’s tournament.
If you’d like to read about Blake Smith, I wrote about him in my Development Camp invites here.
The Bruins are short on natural right wings at this tournament. The most likely to move to the right side are John Farinacci, Halaburda and Poitras. They are also shy of right shot defenceman. Brunet may be the likeliest to move over to the right side.
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