Montreal Canadiens Future Fridays: Changing Camps

Montreal Canadiens fans didn’t need to go far to find the prospects this week with the Rookie Tournament, but the players in Europe saw action as well.

The prospects within the Montreal Canadiens organization didn’t see too much time with their major junior teams this week. That’s because the majority of them were playing for Montreal at the Rookie Tournament last weekend.

Montreal finished the tournament winning one but losing one. In terms of overall play, Daniel Audette, William Bitten, Michael McNiven, and Noah Juulsen stood out for the team.

Josh Brook suffered an upper body injury in Game One and was done for the rest of the weekend. Even though Martin Rèway played both games, his conditioning was a noticeable issue that will have to be taken care of.

As the Montreal Canadiens training camp has begun, some of the prospects have been returned to their junior teams, and others, particularly in Europe, are seeing their seasons continue.

Related Story: Seven Players Send Back to Junior

Week of September 8th-14th

William Bitten

Despite having a great rookie camp where development coach Martin LaPointe made note of his improvements, William Bitten was one of the seven players send down. It’s bittersweet because he made it in time to play the Hamilton Bulldog’s second exhibition game.

It looks like he’s picking up from where he left off with the Habs. He helped Arthur Kaliyev open the scoring for Hamilton with a nice feed to put the team up 1-0.

Joni Ikonen

KalPA began their regular season last Friday and Joni Ikonen has been the top line center for each game. The 2017 2nd round pick has gone pointless in both games but hasn’t necessarily played poorly.

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• Montreal Canadiens: Looking ahead to Juraj Slafkovsky’s sophomore season
• Montreal Canadiens – Kaiden Guhle Rookie Report Card
• Montreal Canadiens: Jordan Harris Rookie Report Card

A report on the young Finnish center from Recrutes.ca has a quote from KalPa head coach Sami Kapanen. Kapanen praises both Ikonen’s offensive and defensive game. His issue is deciding when the best time is to hold on to the puck or pass it to a teammate.

It’ll be a matter of time before Ikonen starts putting up points.

Arvid Henrikson

The Örebro HK J20 team finally saw some action on Wednesday. The Montreal Canadiens 7th round pick from 2016 Arvid Henrikson played on the team’s top pair. Nothing too flashy from Henrikson, but he did get an assist on Marcus Seidl‘s 4-3 goal for Örebro.

Lukas Vejdemo

The center didn’t have as much as an impact for Djurgården IF as last week. Lukas Vejdemo started both games on the third line, but went pointless in all of them. Djurgården starts their regular season on Saturday, so hopefully Montreal Canadiens fans will have the opportunity to see him play better.

Next: Future Fridays -Tracking the Prospects

What do you think of the Montreal Canadiens prospect performances this week? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.