Boston Bruins Prospect Update: Tommy Cross Making Pro Debut With Providence

Only six days removed from captaining the Boston College Eagles to his second NCAA championship, senior defenseman Tommy Cross will suit up for the Providence Bruins in the final weekend of the AHL’s regular season.

Along with Miami University product Carter Camper, Notre Dame alumnus Calle Ridderwall and Boston University’s Colby Cohen and David Warsofsky, Cross will now be the fifth active P-Bruin to have played in an NCAA title game. He is the only one to have played in two, let alone win both times.

Other high-ranking Bruins prospects are still in the hunt for an amateur championship. Defenseman Dougie Hamilton’s Niagara Ice Dogs swept the Brampton Battalion out of the second round of the Ontario League playoffs Thursday night.

Hamilton, last year’s first-round draft choice at ninth overall, currently leads all OHL blueliners with nine assists and 11 points through 10 playoff games. The Ice Dogs will face either the Barrie Colts or the Ottawa 67]s in the Eastern Conference finals.

Over in the OHL’s Western Conference, Jared Knight and the London Knights will try to seize a 3-2 advantage in their best-of-seven series with the Saginaw Spirit Friday night. London has already swept another budding Bruin, Alexander Khokhlachev, and his Windsor Spitfires in the opening round.

Knight―who, like Hamilton, was ultimately part of the Phil Kessel compensation from Toronto―has missed three postseason games but otherwise logged two goals and two assists in five appearances. Having turned 20 earlier this season, he figures to play most or all of the 2012-13 campaign in Providence.

Positioned between Knight and Khokhlachev on the top echelon of the Bruins’ prospect leaderboard is Ryan Spooner, whose major-junior career ended with the Peterborough Petes’ elimination from OHL playoff contention.

Spooner has since hopped on board for some late-season action in the AHL. He enters the weekend action with four points in five appearances with Providence, including three at the tail end of 2010-11.

Now eligible to join the AHL full-time, Spooner should easily be a full-time P-Bruin in 2012-13 with the occasional call-up to Boston as needed.

While the likes of Spooner and Cross give a glimpse of Providence’s presumptive top rookies for next season, some of the established P-Bruins will be handed team hardware before Sunday’s season finale versus the Portland Pirates.

First-year professional forward Craig Cunningham is on pace to be the only player to have seen action in all 76 games for Providence this season.

Cunningham’s defensive side could stand to be spruced up, as evidenced by the minus-nine rating he carries into this weekend. But he is showing promise as a striker in that he is currently tied with AHL veteran Josh Hennessy for the team lead with 19 goals.

Camper, a fellow rookie who has specialized in playmaking with 29 assists, has virtually locked away the distinction as Providence’s top point-getter, leading Hennessy by eight at the top of the chart.

Camper’s position on the scoring chart makes him a natural candidate for team MVP and rookie of the year accolades. But he will have competition for the latter on the blue line and the former in the blue paint.

Goaltender Anton Khudobin continues to play his emergency role with the parent club while Tuukka Rask continues to heal from last month’s lower-body injury. But for the better part of this season, Khudobin has been tasked with bailing out an especially young defensive corps and entered this weekend with 1,275 cumulative saves, sixth-most in the AHL, over 44 appearances.

Crease colleague Michael Hutchinson, meanwhile, is tied for third among league stoppers with a .928 save percentage in 27 games-played.

Yet another first-year AHLer, Kevan Miller, could be a dark horse to periodically join the parent club in times of need next season. The University of Vermont product is running away with the defensively-challenged P-Bruins’ plus/minus lead at plus-20 and will likely claim the team’s top defenseman accolades.

After a season hindered primarily by key injuries and their youthful defensive corps, the P-Bruins are one loss and one point for Portland and Syracuse away from missing their third straight Calder Cup tournament.

But if this weekend’s lineup is indicative of what they will ice next season with sidelined personnel back in good health, there ought to be no excuse for stumbling in 2012-13.