On Friday, the Montreal Canadiens revealed the 23 players who will take part in their rookie camp from September 11 to September 15, and the consensus online is that it’s underwhelming. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone, however, since the Canadiens’ most exciting prospects are either playing in the KHL (Alexander Zharovsky, Gleb Pugachyov), in the NCAA (Michael Hage, Timofei Runtso), or elsewhere in Europe (Vinzenz Rohrer). Even Hayden Paupanekis, who missed last year’s camp because of mononucleosis, won’t be attending since he left the Kelowna Rockets for St. Cloud’s University.

As for top defenseman prospect Bryce Pickford, he’s still recovering from shoulder surgery and isn’t on the list either. The offensive blueliner wasn’t on the ice for development camp either, and he’s still recovering.

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All these absences opened the door for several undrafted players who will attend camp on a tryout basis: seven of the 13 forwards were invited on that basis: Alexander Donovan from the St. John Sea Dogs, Kody Dupuis from the Shawinigan Cataractes, Braydon McCallum from the Peterborough Petes, Mavrick Rousseau-Hamel from the Quebec Remparts, Thomas Rousseau from the Sherbrooke Phoenix, Alexey Vlaskov from the Victoriaville Tigres and Brady Wassilyn from the London Knights. Of the lot, Vlaskov and Rousseau had the best offensive numbers out of the players from the QMJHL last season. The former put up 80 points in just 64 games, while the latter had 52 points in 60 games. As for Donovan, he had 53 points in 63 games in the OHL.

Four of the Canadiens’ picks from the 2026 draft will be attending: Wesley Royston (190th overall), Parker Trottier (189th overall), Jean-Samuel Daigneault (221st overall) and Brayden Klimpke (117th overall).

Even though the roster lacks top prospects, it will still be interesting to see how they hold their own against the Winnipeg Jets (September 12, 1:00 PM) and the Ottawa Senators (September 13, 6:00 PM) rookies. Don’t expect too many cuts by the end of camp, however, since the Canadiens will be playing two split-squad games during the preseason: September 19 against the Toronto Maple Leafs and September 26 against the Ottawa Senators.

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