Boston Bruins: Late Week/Weekend Preview for Their NCAA, Junior Prospects

Malcolm Subban, the Boston Bruins top draft choice in 2012, gets an early to the OHL’s final week of game action in October Wednesday night with the Mississauga Steelheads visiting his Belleville Bulls. Belleville’s sparse, abbreviated homestand will continue and conclude Saturday with a divisional bout versus the Kingston Frontenacs.

On Thursday night, a combination of a win for Dougie Hamilton’s Niagara Ice Dogs and a regulation loss for Anthony Camara’s Barrie Colts would tie those two Boston prospects’ teams for first place in the Central Division.

Barrie will have a game in hand come Saturday when they host the Ice Dogs, who will first stop in Sudbury on Friday.

One other set of Bruins draftees will cross paths in Ontario this weekend when Seth Griffith and the London Knights host Cody Payne and the Plymouth Whalers on Friday.

That will constitute a part of back-to-back-to-back game nights for both teams as the Knights sandwich it with a Thursday excursion to Peterborough and a home tilt with the first-place Guelph Storm. Plymouth will proceed to a home-and-home set with the Kitchener Rangers Friday and Saturday.

Whereas the Whalers will be in their suburban Detroit building for one of their weekend games, Boston’s other Michigan-based prospect, Colton Hargrove of the WMU Broncos, will be idle. The rest of the system’s NCAA products, however, will be in action at home or relatively close.

Rob O’Gara will begin his freshman campaign with the Yale Bulldogs in Providence, the site of the Ivy Shootout at Brown University’s Meehan Auditorium. The Bulldogs will engage Dartmouth in Part I of the semifinals and, depending on Friday’s results, face either the host Bears or the Princeton Tigers on Saturday.

Matthew Grzelcyk’s BU Terriers will trade a home-and-home set with UMass-Amherst, hosting the first installment Friday at Agganis Arena before venturing into the Mullins Center on Saturday.

Everybody else in question shall be staying on campus this weekend. Alexander Fallstrom’s Harvard team is home with Bentley on Saturday while Clarkson (Ben Sexton), Cornell (Brian Ferlin) and North Dakota (Zane Gothberg) entertain Niagara, Colorado College and Alaska-Anchorage, respectively.

Likewise, Matt Benning and the Dubuque Fighting Saints have their first multi-game homestand since the start of the USHL season. The Des Moines Buccaneers and Cedar Rapids Roughriders are dropping in on Friday and Saturday, respectively.