Boston Bruins: Top three players likely to surprise us at training camp

The Boston Bruins training camp is underway, and the roster ended up being somewhat underwhelming.

There weren’t any really surprising late invites to camp, nor any other real surprises in general. Adam McQuaid being at the recent captain’s practice appears not to have been the precursor to inking a PTO with the Boston Bruins.

Likewise, there hasn’t been any early entry-level deal extended to this year’s first round pick, John Beecher. As such, much like so many of the recent crop of Boston Bruins prospects, he’s off to get settled in at college and won’t be about for us to evaluate against NHL-quality players.

Training camp offers an opportunity to see some of the prospect depth, see some of the main roster depth and a chance to evaluate the new summer’s new signings.

For fans of the Boston Bruins, that means a first look at guys like Brett Ritchie, Par Lindholm and Pavel Shen. It also presents a chance to see if Alex Petrovic is worth offering a full-time deal to and whether some of the AHL-only deals will find themselves converted into NHL deals in due time.

Players can surprise at training camp and truly shine, leading to strong regular season performances. Equally, they can give illusions of being better than they actually are in pre-season games and flop when they hit the grind of the NHL season.

For the Boston Bruins coaching staff, this is the best chance to evaluate their guys and determine whether any are master illusionists. We think a few guys though, regardless, are going to surprise us all.

Samuel Asselin

Samuel Asselin might well be a bit of a dark horse for success and finds himself at the Boston Bruins training camp on an AHL contract as opposed to any sort of two-way deal, but we think there’s every chance he shines and surprises a lot of people.

It’s fair to say that late-bloomers aren’t always offered the chance. If you miss out on being drafted then you can either hang around in the lower echelons of professional hockey, maybe travel the world a little bit or you find an alternate career.

Luck has shone upon Samuel Asselin though as the 21 year-old showed enough with an 86 point year for the Halifax Mooseheads of the QMJHL last year to earn a contract with the Providence Bruins.

The center man has a clear eye for goal given that over half those points came as goals, with a tally of 48 goals across that final junior hockey season, good enough for most goals in the league.

Now, I know junior hockey numbers can end up inflated especially when a player is that much older than his peers, but it’s not as if Asselin packs a huge height or weight advantage over the majority of the league.

Standing a just 5’9″ and a slight 181 lbs, he’s not exactly managed to dominate junior hockey last year using his size to get by. It’s safe to say that there’s plenty of untapped potential in Samuel Asselin and I think he’s coming to training camp this year and sticking around almost until the end.

Whilst we shouldn’t expect to see him in the Boston Bruins line-up this season, I’m fully expecting him to make his mark at training camp and impress in Providence, possibly leading to a deal next year.

Brett Ritchie

Brett Ritchie joined up with the Boston Bruins this summer after not being renewed by the Dallas Stars. He’s going to arrive seeking to prove a point, no doubt. With the players he’ll find himself playing alongside, we believe he’ll elevate himself at training camp and come out looking like a free agency bargain.

We’re looking to a player that elevated his game alongside stronger linemates for one season in Dallas; netting an NHL career-high of 16 goals and adding 8 assists across a 78 game stint. He backed that up by managing a further 7 goals and 7 assists in a 71 game run the next year.

These aren’t exactly world-beating numbers, but you could fathom a world in which he has a ceiling of about fifty points if paired with David Krejci and Jake Debrusk on the second line.

A total of 48 points across 68 games in his debut AHL season suggests there certainly is a scoring touch about him; it’s just a case of finding the right cehmistry to draw it out of the Stars’ 2011 second round pick.

When nobody is expecting too much, aside from adding to the roster depth, it should be viewed as a real opportunity. For Ritchie, that’s exactly what this year with the Boston Bruins should be; a huge chance to elevate his game and stake a claim, at 26 years-old to a regular NHL starting line-up spot.

However, to do this he really needs to come out at camp all guns blazing. If we see the Ritchie that Dallas got last year then I can’t see him stepping out of the press box very much, if he doesn’t find himself sent to Providence, that is. His return of 6 points in 53 games was a real let-down.

Training camp this year should be seen as a fresh start; a chance to impress the Boston Bruins and put last year in the past.

For all of these players, it’s not quite make-or-break, but it certainly sets the tone for the year ahead, both for them and the Boston Bruins.

If they come out of the gate red-hot, that’s perfect – the team will find itself comfortably on course to return to the playoffs at the very least. Should they falter though, in part because nobody showed up at training camp, well, the Atlantic Division is a challenging place.