After a shorter than usual, but seemingly endless summer, the 2017-18 season starts in earnest tonight as the Senators rookies square off against the Canadiens rookies at the Toronto prospects tournament in Toronto.
While it is completely meaningless in terms of standings, winning and losing, it gives the respective clubs an opportunity to get a look at some of their young players in some type of game action for the first time this season, while also bringing some of the players that will mark the future of the club in the same dressing room for the first time ever.
Players to watch that might see varying amounts of NHL time this season include top prospects Thomas Chabot and Colin White, whose chances of at least starting the season in Ottawa as opposed to Belleville increased with lingering injuries to Erik Karlsson and Derick Brassard.
But other future Senators to watch include goalie Marcus Hogberg, who could be the #1 goalie in Belleville this season with an eye to assuming the Senators' crease when Craig Anderson hangs up his skates, as well as 2016 first rounder Logan Brown, who won the Memorial Cup last season with the Windsor Spitfires but will be looking to have a bounce-back, (and hopefully healthy) final season of junior and a good performance at the upcoming World Juniors. He did have 40 points in 35 games, but he needs to be dominant and stay in the lineup this year.
Montreal, who opened the 3-team tournament on Friday night with a 5-2 win over the mini Leafs, have some interesting stories as well. Notables include Martin Reway, who missed the last 16 months with a heart condition, as well as Brown's Windsor teammate Jeremiah Addison. They also feature 2015 first rounder Noah Juulsen, Ottawa native William Bitten and Daniel Audette, son of former NHLer Donald Audette.
Most rookie tournament games will be streamed on NHL.com, but for some reason the article I looked at on NHL.com omitted tonight's game, while listing seemingly every other rookie tournament game going on at every location (23 teams playing in 5 different tournaments around the continent). Not sure if that is an error and they just missed it, or this game isn't being shown for some reason, but it is worth checking out at 7:00 to see if it is on or not.
Hockey's back!