NORTH SMITHFIELD, RIBruins general manager Peter Chiarelli confirmed what Dougie Hamilton made plain to CSNNE.com earlier this summer: The first-round pick will leave the CHL and report to Boston once the NHL lockout is finally over.
It was originally thought there could be an issue if a lockout forced the 2011 first-rounder to start the season playing for the Niagara Ice Dogs this season. But the NHL and CHL have agreed to allow each NHL team to designate up to three players that could be pulled out of junior hockey when the lockout is over, and Hamilton will indeed be one of those players.
They made an amendment to the NHLs agreement with the Canadian Hockey League that will allow us to extract at the very least Dougie at the time of camp, said Chiarelli. There are a small number of players per team you can take because we have to be fair to the CHL teams as well.
Ifwhen we have an NHL season, Dougie will be available.
Chiarelli said the only other junior player under consideration for training camp in Boston would be Belleville Bulls goalie and 2012 first-round pick Malcolm Subban. But the Bs goalie prospect would only come to Boston camp if theres a catastrophic injury to their expected NHL goaltending tandem of Tuukka Rask and Anton Khudobin while each plays in the Czech League and KHL, respectively.
So Hamilton continues on the path toward being Bostons sixth defenseman when the NHL starts the regular season, and Chiarelli indicated there will be a few additional players from Providence invited to a shortened training camp. It likely wouldnt be more than 2-3 weeks of camp to get players ready for whats appearing to be a surely shortened NHL season, and would only include invites to players with a legitimate chance of cracking the NHL roster.
Head coach Claude Julien, along with assistant coaches Doug Houda, Doug Jarvis, Bob Essensa and Geoff Ward, were all in attendance for both sessions of the Providence Bruins' opening day of training camp.
Ifwhen the regular season begins it will be shorter and there will be less players in attendance," said Chiarelli. "If training camp is in the middle of Providences year, you dont want to pull out half their team. Thats why we have the Bruins coaches here watching and overseeing things.
So theyll have a good flavor of these guys and when the time comes well pull up a few of these guys. As the season progresses well have a greater assessment of the guys, but it will be a shorter camp in Boston with a quick turnaround.
Its expected that players like Jordan Caron, Chris Bourque, Matt Bartkowski, Lane MacDermid, Tommy Cross, Colby Cohen and Torey Krug could be part of the select group of players called to Boston once the lockout is over. But for now theyre part of the 34 players skating at P-Bruins camp.