Friday, July 2, 2010

Bruins announce 2010 Development Camp Roster

Here's the roster, now for a few notes:

Invite Marc Cantin is a defenseman and member of the 2010 Memorial Cup champion Windsor Spitfires after being acquired from the Belleville Bulls at the CHL trade deadline.

Here's what the Spits' media guide had to say about him (special thanks to Spitfires media relations guru Robbie Gagnon for the hookup):

Cantin is a physical defenceman who skates well and can play against the opposing team’s top lines. He makes good decisionsconsistently and plays a solid defensive game. Cantin played big minutes in the Windsor Spitfires OHL Championship run this season andwas tied for fourth in the entire league with a +13 plus-minus rating. He will be expected to log big minutes in a shutdown defensive role forthe Spitfires at the 2010 MasterCard Memorial Cup in Brandon.

Tyler Brenner was a member of the 2010 Cinderella story, Rochester Institute of Technology, who made it all the way to the Frozen Four (knocking off heavy favorites Denver University and UNH along the way) before turning into a pumpkin against Wisconsin. The 22-year-old winger from Linwood, Ontario scored 15 goals and 26 points in 33 games for the Tigers. His bio on the R.I.T. website lists Bobby Orr's 1970 Stanley Cup-clinching goal as his favorite hockey moment and Orr is the person in history he'd most like to meet. Maybe he gets his wish...

Defenseman Ryan Donald spent four years at Yale University and played three games in the AHL with the Springfield Falcons (1 assist) at the conclusion of the 2009-10 season. His two goals and eight points last season was a career-best.

All of the 2010 draft picks will be at Ristuccia save for seventh-rounder Maxim Chudinov, who might come next year.

Also present will be forward Alexander Fallstrom, a fourth-round selection of the Minnesota Wild in 2009 who was acquired along with a second-round pick in 2011 for Chuck Kobasew last fall. He just completed his freshman season at Harvard University (four goals, 12 points in 32 games). The Swede was a teammate of Anaheim first-rounder Emerson Etem at Shattuck St. Mary's in 2007-08.

"He's a great player," Etem told Bruins2010DraftWatch last month when asked about Fallstrom. "He plays with a ton of energy and is really smart."

Also in attendance will be Kitchener winger Tyler Randell, a sixth-round 2009 draft choice of the B's. I talked to his coach Steve Spott recently, and here's what he had to say about Randell:

"Tyler is a very big, physical, skilled player," Spott said. "What he's going to need to work on is his consistency. There are games when he's dominant and other nights, he's filling a sweater. At this level, he should be scoring 25-30 goals in a season, so this is a big year for him."

Spott also talked about some of the tactics he's employed to help motivate Randell, a player who was seen in some circles as high as a second- or third-round talent, but who slipped down because of the lack of consistency.

"I've told Tyler that there's going to be someone from Boston evaluating him every night," Spott said. "The difference in the paycheck between Boston and Providence every night is huge. Like (Dustin) Byfuglien, he's going to have to go to the net and make his hay there. Last year was tough for him because he battled through some back injuries, but with his size and skill level, he's capable of bigger things, and he knows that."

Bruins fans will be buzzing at the camp because of the arrival of Tyler Seguin for his first on-ice work that folks will be privy to, but there are so many intriguing subplots as well: How will the second-round OHL connection of Jared Knight and Ryan Spooner look? Can Joe Colborne finally exhibit some dominance in his third such apperance at development camp? Will Yuri Alexandrov grab the bull by the horns after being pretty conservative in his approach last summer? How are the goalies going to look?

This is going to be a great time.

Have a nice Fourth of July weekend for those of you in the USA and I'll be around here and there, but you'll have a lot of good coverage for the prospect camp starting next Wednesday the 7th. Traveling to Boston on the 6th, so won't be at the first media session, but everything else afterward.

Drop me a line at kluedeke@hockeyjournal.com if you have any questions or want to meet up at Ristuccia on any of the days.

1 comment:

  1. WOW. How did the Bruins end up with Marc Cantin? I missed that one big time. Solid guy. I like him.

    Keep an eye on Hutch !! I'm going to miss him in London, when he is on top of his game of course

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