Boston Bruins: Latest News and Notes on Their College and Junior Prospects

Malcolm Subban, the reigning first-round draft choice of the Boston Bruins, has pole-vaulted into first place among Ontario Hockey League goaltenders in both goals-against average and save percentage. He elevated those stats to 2.18 and .932, respectively, on Wednesday night with a 33-save effort en route to the Belleville Bulls’ 4-1 win over the Kingston Frontenacs.

The win was Subban’s third straight, matching a season-high previously set on three other occasions. Lately, beginning on Dec. 5 and with a World Juniors sabbatical in between, he has followed a pattern of three wins and one loss for every four games.

Friday’s excursion to Mississauga will be his next chance to achieve his first four-game winning streak in a little more than a year. Although, his last run of that length without a break in between was in the overlap between November and December 2011.

A three-in-four weekend for the Bulls will continue at home with a Saturday visit from the Sudbury Wolves, followed by a Monday matinee against fellow budding Bruin Anthony Camara and the Barrie Colts.

Since the start of this calendar month, Camara has tickled the opposing mesh on a nightly basis for a 4-1-5 scoring log in his last four outings.

One more goal on top of his current total of 31 will double his output of 16 with the Colts and Saginaw Spirit last season. Already, within this season alone, Camara has eclipsed the 30 strikes he accumulated over the course of his first three major junior campaigns.

Subban’s Bulls trail Camara’s Colts by three points atop the OHL’s Eastern Conference with two games in hand. Barrie is one of two teams to have already secured a playoff berth—the other being Seth Griffith and the London Knights, who reign supreme in the West.

By virtue of leading their division, Cody Payne’s Plymouth Whalers are another team bearing a Boston draftee and sitting among the top two in an OHL conference.

The Windsor Spitfires, featuring Alexander Khokhlachev, are the lone exception in this department. Windsor is sitting seven points out of eighth place in the Western Conference, although Khokhlachev is riding a seven-game production streak with two hat tricks.

If the latest PairWise rankings are any indication, freshman Matt Grzelcyk and Boston University are in a similarly uncertain position as far as postseason action is concerned. The Terriers dropped to 13-12-1 on the year earlier this week when they lost the Beanpot consolation game to Harvard, 7-4.

While Grzelcyk finished with a minus-two rating in his second extramural twirl at TD Garden, starting center Alexander Fallstrom notched an assist to help the Crimson to a win in his final collegiate engagement at the arena. The senior’s next appearance between the Garden boards will likely have him bearing the Spoked-B at training camp or another event building up to the 2013-14 season.

In the interim, returning to ECAC action, Fallstrom will face another Bruins prospect this Saturday when the Crimson host Brian Ferlin and the Cornell Big Red. The implications of that tilt are a tad less enthralling than the Bulls-Colts bout in that these programs are battling to stay out of last place.

Conversely, Rob O’Gara and Ben Sexton are at each end of a dense middle-of-the-pack conglomeration. Sexton’s Clarkson team is tied for eighth in the ECAC, but trail O’Gara and the second-place Yale Bulldogs by only four points.

After a breakout four-game point streak, Colton Hargrove was held scoreless in each half of Western Michigan’s two-game split with Miami last weekend. The split kept the opposing Redhawks a point ahead of Hargrove's Broncos for first in the CCHA.

Hargrove will seek to rekindle his stick and help himself and his team peak at the right time in a two-night visit to Ohio State, the sixth- and fifth-to-last games of the regular season.