Boston Bruins Rookie Camp: Forwards to Watch | Ep. 159

0:00 Speaker 1: I'm going to find my note. I've lost my cheat sheet. Where the heck did it go? I closed it. Hold on.

0:07 Speaker 2: This is our training camp.

0:09 Speaker 1: Thanks, Maria. Yes, hang on. You'd think I'd have it memorized at this point.

0:16 Speaker 2: Can you start a podcast with me, please? I need something to do. Pasternak sends it out in front.

0:30 Speaker 3: Of the goal for the save, they score!

0:34 Speaker 2: Aliyah Slinum looks to the heavens! Here's a chance, Pasternak right in on goal, he scores! Oh my, what a move by the rookie.

0:40 Speaker 4: Two on one, Pasternak moving in with Marsdahn, get it to him, score! Out of the zone, Hoyle dances in, backhand, score!

0:48 Speaker 2: Glenn Holm right wing corner, Pasternak is there, he scores!

0:54 Speaker 4: David Pasternak wins it for Boston!

1:06 Speaker 1: Welcome in, everyone, to another episode of Bruins Tape to Tape. I am your host today, Caroline with a K, and I'm joined by my fantastic co-host, Maria from Watertown.

1:18 Speaker 4: Hey, Maria.

1:18 Speaker 2: Hey, Caroline.

1:20 Speaker 1: And coming back for part two of our Rookie Camp predictions is Mary Beth, our Doctor of Devs. Hello, Mary Beth.

1:28 Speaker 2: Hi there.

1:29 Speaker 3: So hopefully we have more people to talk about as likely... roster members of rookie camp. Last week we talked about the defensemen and how it's just a little bit weird that because of all of this transition that we've been seeing at the NHL level and all that change that is now starting to appear basically in the development pipeline and in our rookie pipeline with the Bruins and so a lot of The players that we've seen and we know either are not there anymore or a lot of the players that we've been tracking over the last season or two are still.

2:13 Speaker 1: In the NCAA. And so we'll not be seeing them yet, although we likely will be seeing them soon. We're here now to talk about the forwards. We saw maybe some of these guys at DevCamp. I'm going to have to get a refresher from you guys about the likelihood of any of the forwards coming to camp. But we still have a couple of guys who were at rookie camp last year, a couple of guys who were even invited to full training camp. So maybe we'll see those guys on the ice. But walk us through what is the current landscape of who we could genuinely expect to see on the 11th?

2:55 Speaker 2: We talked about this a little bit last time. Most of the players that are in the Bruins pipeline right now, or a lot of them compared to previous years, are committed to either NCAA or their international teams, which start play in the next week or two. Just like with the defensemen, as we're looking at our forwards, we are taking a shot in the dark here. I know they're going to fill out camp. I know it'll be fine. But it's interesting for us to look at who do we actually have as a prospect now.

3:26 Speaker 2: We are going to end up seeing a bunch of invites. And we're coming right back to where I had said when we were talking about defense, my guess is we see a few more Providence players than we may have seen in the past. And as a reminder, rookie camp is really the precursor to training camp. You don't all come to rookie camp expecting to get the invite to training camp, but they all come in with their fingers crossed that it's going to happen.

3:52 Speaker 1: And some players go into rookie camp knowing that full training camp is not even on the table because they have to go to juniors or they're supposed to go someplace else. We have seen that happen before where they did get to participate in one, but not the other. I'm excited to hear about, first of all, the three that I would naturally assume are going to be in attendance, which are the three that made camp last year. But then also maybe any new players from Providence that we've really not gotten to know.

4:23 Speaker 1: Why don't we start with who maybe was there last year? Riley Duran, Danzlo Schmelis, and oh, I forget his first name. Starts with a J. Schmaltz. Jake? Jake.

4:36 Speaker 4: Jake.

4:36 Speaker 5: All right.

4:37 Speaker 1: Great. Jake. The beer guy. Because every time I see his name, I just think of Schmaltz Beer.

4:43 Speaker 2: We are likely not going to see Jake Schmaltz at Rookie Camp this year.

4:48 Speaker 5: Really?

4:48 Speaker 2: He's 25. Or age-wise, he's a little bit older. But the other thing is he is established with the Providence Bruins now. And sometimes we will see them, even when they've been playing with the Providence Bruins. But more likely, once they are an established professional player for a couple of years, we're not going to see them at rookie camp, particularly as they get a little bit older. Yes. For a player who comes right out of juniors into professional hockey, so into the ECHL, into the HL, they are going to be a little bit younger than someone who does juniors to NCAA or even straight to NCAA.

5:25 Speaker 2: Even though they have professional experience, they are someone that you're going to maybe see at rookie camp. But a player like Schmaltz, 25, been playing professionally, we're not going to see him. But it It's fun to watch and see who was at rookie camp and who actually continued on and made it professionally.

5:43 Speaker 1: Yes, that is very interesting. So I guess that leaves us with then... two, right? Riley Duran. Unless did he age out? I didn't check his age.

5:52 Speaker 2: He did not age out yet.

5:54 Speaker 4: Seems like he should at this point, but yeah, he's been around for a while.

5:59 Speaker 2: That's for sure. Riley Duran, we'll start with him. He's 24. So he's like right there, age-wise bubble. When we look at him though, he's an experienced player. He, to me, is a possible He's not a likely, he's not one that I'd say for sure. Oh yeah, he's somebody we're going to see at rookie camp. Now we have seen him at rookie camp and we've seen him at dev camp and love that, but he's not somebody that for me would be a lock in the same way some of the other players would be because again, he's been with Providence.

6:29 Speaker 2: He is an established professional player and age wise at 24, right on that bubble of what you'd consider for rookie camp. Doesn't mean that we won't see him, but he has signed in and he's been with the Providence Bruins for a number of years now. That's why for him, they might want him to round out the roster to have those bodies on the ice, to have a little bit of experience for those younger players to play off of. But we may or may not be seeing him. Now, he did have a fairly good season last year.

6:59 Speaker 2: He played 72 games last year. 19 points. I really, I liked him. When we look at his plus minus for last year, we are at 22, plus 22. Oh, sorry, plus 19. Looking at the wrong deck. He had a great, solid season. He didn't come up two seasons ago. We didn't see him at all in the Boston Bruins last year. We did see him two years ago for just two games where we didn't see anything from him. And they were like, too bad. He had your shot. So he's somebody who maybe we'll see get a shot at some point as far as Boston Bruins.

7:32 Speaker 2: Maybe not quite yet because, again, we've got a pretty full roster there. Now, Lashmelis, I think we probably won't see. Oh, really? Yeah, the reason for that, he's 22, but he has a ton of experience on the international stage, and he's been playing professionally for the last couple of years with Providence. This is going to be his third season with Providence.

7:58 Speaker 1: I was going to say, but he only played six games in his first season. quote-unquote season.

8:02 Speaker 2: Yeah, but last year he did have an injury, but he played 43 games last year. 15 goals, 13 assists. I consider him to be a fairly established professional player. And because, I think mostly because of his international experience, I don't know that they'd look at him as much as a candidate for rookie camp this year.

8:22 Speaker 4: Yeah.

8:23 Speaker 2: Great.

8:23 Speaker 1: So that leaves us with nobody. So who's coming? We need 13 players to be on the ice, Mary Beth.

8:31 Speaker 2: Lashmelis may come in.

8:33 Speaker 1: He may run that out.

8:35 Speaker 2: But it wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't. Okay. I would actually say Duran would be more likely to come to camp over Lashmelis. I would expect Cole Chandler. We've seen him at Dev Camp. I'd expect him to be at Rookie Camp this year. He is 19 and he plays in juniors. He's not NCAA. He is committed to Northeastern for next year, but not this year.

8:58 Speaker 1: Yeah. But then that would probably mean that he has no intention of participating if he were good enough in full? Do we think he's going to be?

9:09 Speaker 2: I would guess that any of them would say yes to training camp if they were invited.

9:14 Speaker 1: Yeah.

9:15 Speaker 4: Yeah.

9:15 Speaker 2: If they say no, they should have their head examined. Who wouldn't want to jump up and start their career? Most of the time you're doing juniors in NCAA to get that chance.

9:26 Speaker 4: Or just getting the invite should speak. a little bit of a volume about that. We're being asked, maybe you can show them something that's going to give them food for thought, if not for right then and now, but for the future. Yeah, that's exactly right.

9:42 Speaker 2: Another player that we might see who's not technically in our system is Jackson Vaughn. He was a dev here. He plays WHL right now, doesn't conflict. So it wouldn't surprise me if they wanted to get another look at him. That's where we start to look at some of the reason that people come into or invited to camp is so that we can get another look at them it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case here so we might want to keep an eye out on jackson bond yeah that's kind of it from.

10:11 Speaker 1: Awesome We talked about this before.

10:14 Speaker 2: Letourneau, Zellers, Simpson, Pelosi, Hendrickson, Morello, Nasson, Spicer, all NCAA players. So they can't even set foot on this ice. They can put on it for the two rookie camp days, but not for the showcase.

10:28 Speaker 1: The challenge, right. It doesn't benefit anybody.

10:31 Speaker 2: Anybody, yeah. So instead, I have some alternatives that we may use.

10:35 Speaker 1: Please, enlighten us, because this is worse than... This whole situation is worse.

10:42 Speaker 4: Is this why the prospects pool is rated so poorly still?

10:46 Speaker 1: I don't know.

10:49 Speaker 2: Because these guys are committed. Yeah.

10:50 Speaker 1: I just don't have anyone available to actually do anything right now.

10:55 Speaker 2: I actually love this. Now, another player that we didn't talk about was Patra, technically eligible for rookie camp. But again, he's somebody who's already expected to be a training camp invite. He wasn't at rookie camp last year. I wouldn't expect him to be at rookie camp this year. But he is one that, as people look and say, he's not on the NHL squad permanently.

11:16 Speaker 1: When that But if he didn't go to rookie camp last year and his first camp of the season was full camp, you're.

11:24 Speaker 4: Not going to go backwards.

11:26 Speaker 5: Right.

11:26 Speaker 2: So I do want to just address that because some people do wonder, what about Patra? But he didn't come to rookie camp last year. He's not going to be coming this year. He's going to be invited to training camp and see what he can do. Exactly. There are four other Providence Bruins players that are possible invites to rookie camp. This is based on age and experience. The first one I actually forgot was even on our roster.

11:50 Speaker 1: Oh, dear God.

11:51 Speaker 2: It's Tillio Biasca. Okay.

11:54 Speaker 1: Okay.

11:55 Speaker 2: Yeah, that was my reaction when I was looking.

11:57 Speaker 1: I don't even know who that is.

11:58 Speaker 2: He's 23 years old. He plays center and left wing, shoots left. He's been playing for Switzerland U-20. Somebody actually had him listed on the NHL squad, but I'm like, I don't think so. He's actually signed for Providence. Would they invite him to round it out? All of those things might be true. This is his first year with Providence. He really does fit the bill for me as somebody who would be a solid invite to rookie camp. Yes.

12:26 Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I think that would make sense. I know that rookie camp is very different from development camp, but it almost feels like this year, rookie camp will be more so an exercise in development more than ones in the past. Yes, they're obviously still trying out, but what are.

12:49 Speaker 2: The odds that.

12:51 Speaker 1: that it seems like this year the number of players who are going to get invited to full camp could be even less than last year. And so perhaps the purpose is getting them acclimated to a higher level of hockey, like this kid that you're talking about who has played abroad for the last couple of years. at a very different level, this is more feeling developmental, which is fine. But I'm wondering if this season, this year's rookie camp is more of that flavor than, okay, we're going to have a hard time picking who can keep going forward.

13:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely agree. I remember, I think it was two years ago, we saw like Patra and a couple of other players that were like, are they going to get the invite? Are they getting pulled up? And I'm not looking at our best guesses right now for rookie camp and saying, oh yeah, they're definitely going to get an invite to training camp or there's a chance of this where I can see them getting an invite to training camp. For some of these guys, I'm not expecting it at all. And that's where, and I think this goes back to the last couple of podcast episodes where the two of you were breaking down who do we have forwards who do we have defense and then when we spoke about looking ahead to what we might see at rookie camp for the defense our coffers are full we have very robust roster right now I would like a one C please if anybody's listening but we don't have a lot of top six we've got a lot of bottom six and that's where these guys start to slot in so that's where there's not a whole lot of room for us to move people up just yet yeah True.

14:29 Speaker 2: One of the things that may happen at rookie camp is to see who goes to Maine, who goes to Providence, start to see what do we want to work on? Like as we're talking about Bioska, what do we want to work on with him in Providence to develop him to be ready to go to training camp, to be ready to come up if there's an injury? That's the kind of stuff that I think we're going to be seeing a little bit more of. Camp is short. It's not the same as that week of development camp. prospect showcase works a little bit different.

14:59 Speaker 2: They slot in, but they move around. There's a little bit shorter shifts here and there, sometimes a little bit longer depending on where they are, but it's not playing to that same rhythm all the time because they're doing different things. They're working on different things. They want to win. But it's really about developing, becoming a team, learning the system for your team, and doing it now against another team. It's a different ballgame to start, but this year in particular, a very different flavor, I think, we're expecting.

15:30 Speaker 1: Who else you got?

15:31 Speaker 2: I've also got Ivan Ivan. Ivan Ivan is 24 years old.

15:35 Speaker 1: Yes.

15:36 Speaker 2: He's one that is more of a maybe than when I'm looking at Biasca seems to me more of a likely. But Ivan isn't totally new to professional sport. He is signed with the Providence Bruins. So anybody we're talking about right now is already signed. But he played for the last couple of years with the Colorado Avalanche and the Colorado Eagles.

15:59 Speaker 1: But he does not have an established role. So that kind of makes me think maybe they want to see what he really has. This could be another one of those Fraser Minton situations.

16:11 Speaker 2: That's where I got him on a maybe because when I look at Fraser Minton coming in last year, I would be excited to see him at rookie camp to get to know him a little bit better.

16:22 Speaker 1: The one name that we have not mentioned. Maybe this is going to be a Fraser Minton situation. Maybe it's a done deal. But we have not actually talked about James Hagen.

16:30 Speaker 2: Oh, James Hagen's We Will Not Be Sing at Rookie Camp. Fair. There's no way.

16:34 Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I don't know as much or anywhere near as what Gary Beth does. But if he was at Rookie Camp, everyone would be up in arms. This kid needs to be at training camp.

16:46 Speaker 2: Yes.

16:46 Speaker 1: Yes.

16:47 Speaker 2: He needs to get ready.

16:49 Speaker 1: He needs to become NHL ready at this point. The only benefit that I could imagine is that A, they need the numbers and B, to ease him in to true NHL play. Because I really don't consider the three games that he played in. They threw him into the deep end, which is one way to learn. But you do have to take good care of your players who you're putting a lot of.

17:17 Speaker 2: Stock into.

17:18 Speaker 1: A lot on their shoulders. And so I would hope that they handle him well. And it's been so long for the Bruins since they've had a pick that high up.

17:28 Speaker 2: I don't know what to expect.

17:30 Speaker 1: You're probably right, but.

17:31 Speaker 2: When we look at Max Celebrini, Mac was the number one pick overall. You look at somebody like Conor Bedard, number one pick overall. They both are carrying their franchise. Right. James Higgins does not have the weight of the Bruins on his shoulders. Thank God for him. So there was a different expectation for both Celebrini and Dart coming in, for instance. For somebody who likes to watch developing players and watch them develop, I would love Higgins to come to rookie camp. But the thing is, He'd be so far above where everybody else is right now, the same way with Minton was last year.

18:04 Speaker 2: Would there really be a benefit to it for him? And I think that's where they look at it. I would love him to have a ton of ice time with a ton of different people and all of that. But I think in this case, he's above that.

18:16 Speaker 1: He's got a higher ceiling, for sure.

18:17 Speaker 2: He's got a higher ceiling, but he still needs to play a little catch-up because Kustadinov and Minton have a lot of NHL experience and have been playing at that higher level for a lot more minutes. Again, I'm not worried about Higgins at all.

18:30 Speaker 5: But that was just a name we had not yet mentioned. No, and I actually should have brought that up, that we're not going to see him. If we did, it would completely shock me. It would be shocking. I'm not sure that it's worth what little benefit there might be to him and to the organization rather than having him be right at training camp.

18:49 Speaker 1: So if there's no Higgins, who else? Is there anyone else?

18:52 Speaker 2: There may be a Lucas Reichel.

18:54 Speaker 1: Oh.

18:55 Speaker 2: Is he really a good person? candidate for it I don't really know but he is 24 he doesn't have a ton of NHL experience with our organizations.

19:05 Speaker 1: But he did play a lot Chicago.

19:08 Speaker 2: But again, are we looking at a Minton situation or not? I don't necessarily expect him, but he's somebody that maybe. If I'm looking at some of these bottom six or top six Providence players and wondering, all right, what might we see? How are we going to fill out? Because it's going to be a lot of invites for rookie camp. They may be a little unconventional with the players they invite to rookie camp this year. And that's where I'm thinking a little bit out of the box on this, only because the list I have is so sparse.

19:35 Speaker 2: And last year, it wasn't.

19:37 Speaker 1: And next year will be, I think, pretty robust. But yeah, this is like a weird... Right, right.

19:43 Speaker 2: This is a weird dynamic.

19:45 Speaker 1: This It's the potential to be more robust next year. So is there at least one more name?

19:51 Speaker 2: There is one more, and I'm not even sure. I'm sure I'm not going to say this right. It's a new guy down for Providence. It's Kai Vasanen. His name is Finnish, so I am saying it wrong. And my apologies to all the Finnish fans. His first name is K-A-L-L-E. The last name is V-A-I-S-A-N-E-N. So that is how I am saying it. But again, I'm sure I'm wrong. He was with Hartford. So he was playing with Hartford for the last couple of seasons. Maria, you're not going to love this. Negative 12. Oh, my God. He played 51 games, three goals, one assist.

20:31 Speaker 1: So wait, how did he get acquired? How was he acquired? Because he was in the Rangers system.

20:38 Speaker 2: He was in the Rangers system. And I think we picked him up.

20:42 Speaker 4: Bruins acquired him in a 2028 fourth round in exchange for goaltender Giannis Corposalo. So he's 23, cleared in 51 games.

20:53 Speaker 2: This is somebody who fits in nicely with the rookie camp profile. I don't think he's ever going to be more than, to use Maria's term, a jag. Yeah. But why not have him come to rookie camp? So I have a feeling that we'll see him at rookie camp as kind of a new guy, not established in our system in particular. Only two seasons really professional as far as it goes.

21:15 Speaker 4: It was, I guess, to get the salary off the books and get some cap relief.

21:19 Speaker 2: That's all it was. We kind of knew that's what it was going to be.

21:24 Speaker 1: What we're going to do next is because rookie camp is then actually kicking off this week. We'll have a good sense of what our rookie camp roster is going to look like. We will do a follow-up on the sub stack about were we right? Were there some surprises? Are there people we've completely forgotten about? Because that's also entirely possible. And we will get an update probably early in the season from you, Mary Beth, right? We'll circle back and figure out, okay... who looked good, who's not looking so good.

21:56 Speaker 1: And we might see maybe pop up if there are vacancies in the Bruins lineup during the season because that's inevitable. It's going to happen. I don't feel awesome, but this is low risk, low stakes. So that's okay. I'm okay with it.

22:13 Speaker 2: Rookie camp this year doesn't have the same sexy feel to it it's had in other years because we're not expecting really any breakouts.

22:20 Speaker 1: I know. It doesn't sound like there are any diamonds in the rough.

22:25 Speaker 2: Not yet.

22:25 Speaker 4: With other than those that we are aware of that we know will be a training camp or that who are committed to their NCAA teams.

22:33 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And I think last year we were excited at rookie camp. We knew there'd be some invites coming out of it. And this year we're not really feeling like it. So that makes rookie camp feel a little less exciting for us. But it also speaks to the fact that there's so many of our prospects that aren't going to be there. That to me is the fun part. That to me is the sexy part of the Bruins pipeline is that we've got some players that we know are doing great things in the NCAA. And they're just a couple years.

23:01 Speaker 2: Some of them may be at the end of this season. Some of them in two years. But we're just a couple years from this. But let's see if we guessed right on who to talk about. Let's see who we missed and let's see who they bring in that we're not expecting. Yeah.

23:14 Speaker 1: But thank you again, Mary Beth. Even though we are not feeling super awesome, It's very enlightening. We've learned about a couple of new players in the pipeline that I certainly had no idea were even possibilities. So it's always good to start talking about some new guys and see where they go and start tracking them. But remind everybody, this is the time of year where we get new listeners, new follows. Remind everyone how they can find you online.

23:42 Speaker 2: You can find me everywhere at mbskis.

23:46 Speaker 1: Excellent. Make sure you like and subscribe for more content and be sure to leave a rating and review to help other Bruins fans find us. You can support the podcast by joining our Patreon or following us on our socials at tape2tapemk and on Substack at tape2tapemk. substack. com.

24:04 Speaker 2: This is our training camp.

24:05 Speaker 1: This is our training camp. Final thought.

24:10 Speaker 2: Go Bruins.

24:12 Speaker 1: Absolutely. As always, go Bees.

24:33 Speaker 3: Thank you.