Canadiens: The Big Difference About This Year’s Rookie Camp Roster
On Friday,the Montreal Canadiens revealed the 23 players who will take part in theirrookie camp from September 11 to September 15, and the consensus online is thatit’s underwhelming. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone, however,since the Canadiens’ most exciting prospects are either playing in the KHL(Alexander Zharovsky, Gleb Pugachyov), in the NCAA (Michael Hage, TimofeiRuntso), or elsewhere in Europe (Vinzenz Rohrer). Even Hayden Paupanekis, whomissed last year’s camp because of mononucleosis, won’t be attending since heleft the Kelowna Rockets for St. Cloud’s University.
As for topdefenseman prospect Bryce Pickford, he’s still recovering from shoulder surgeryand isn’t on the list either. The offensive blueliner wasn’t on the ice fordevelopment camp either, and he’s still recovering.
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All theseabsences opened the door for several undrafted players who will attend camp ona tryout basis: seven of the 13 forwards were invited on that basis: AlexanderDonovan from the St. John Sea Dogs, Kody Dupuis from the Shawinigan Cataractes,Braydon McCallum from the Peterborough Petes, Mavrick Rousseau-Hamel from theQuebec Remparts, Thomas Rousseau from the Sherbrooke Phoenix, Alexey Vlaskovfrom the Victoriaville Tigres and Brady Wassilyn from the London Knights. Ofthe lot, Vlaskov and Rousseau had the best offensive numbers out of the playersfrom the QMJHL last season. The former put up 80 points in just 64 games, whilethe latter had 52 points in 60 games. As for Donovan, he had 53 points in 63games in the OHL.
Four of theCanadiens’ picks from the 2026 draft will be attending: Wesley Royston (190thoverall), Parker Trottier (189th overall), Jean-Samuel Daigneault(221st overall) and Brayden Klimpke (117th overall).
Even thoughthe roster lacks top prospects, it will still be interesting to see how they holdtheir own against the Winnipeg Jets (September 12, 1:00 PM) and the OttawaSenators (September 13, 6:00 PM) rookies. Don’t expect too many cuts by the endof camp, however, since the Canadiens will be playing two split-squad gamesduring the preseason: September 19 against the Toronto Maple Leafs and September26 against the Ottawa Senators.
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