The Montreal Canadiens are in the midst of their rookie tournament this week. They have already taken on the Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils, and will face the Ottawa Senators tomorrow afternoon to close it out.
The team will get a bit of a boost to its roster tomorrow, with a couple of their very best prospects returning to the lineup. Laval Rocket head coach J. F. Houle is running the rookie team and he announced earlier today that a pair of recent first round picks will play in tomorrow’s game.
Juraj Slafkovsky played in the first game of the tournament but sat out the game against New Jersey. Kaiden Guhle has not yet played in the event, but both Slafkovsky and Guhle are slated to play against the Ottawa Senators tomorrow afternoon.
Slafkovsky, the first overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, will be heading to the Canadiens main training camp next week looking to prove he is ready to jump straight from the NHL Draft to the NHL. Tomorrow’s game is one last tune-up for the big Slovakian winger before we see him in preseason action later this month.
Guhle has been to Canadiens training camps each year since being drafted in the first round of the 2020 NHL Draft. This will be his third NHL camp and he has a real chance of grabbing an NHL roster spot after a terrific Junior career. He has been dealing with injury during the summer, so the team sat him out of the first two games of this event to allow him a couple more practice days before playing in game action.
Slafkovsky and Guhle are arguably the Canadiens two best prospects right now. It will be a treat to get to see them play together for the first time, even if it is a rookie tournament game and the box score will not go down in history.
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