By Rick Stephens, Editor-in-Chief, All Habs Hockey Magazine

BROSSARD, QC. —  The big news of Day 5 was Markus Eisenschmid did not score a goal. The tryout from the Medicine Hat Tigers had scored four times in the first two scrimmages.

In all seriousness, the biggest news of this day happened off-ice with the Canadiens signing their first round pick of 2015, Noah Juulsen, to a three-year entry-level contract. Juulsen said, “It’s an amazing feeling. Everyone wants to have that opportunity but not everyone does. I’m just lucky enough to have that opportunity.”

Juulsen said that centre Tomas Plekanec reached out to him with a text after he was drafted by the Canadiens.  Juulsen was held out of scrimmages at Brossard this week due to a shoulder injury. “I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to scrimmage, but [Canadiens management] didn’t want me to risk another injury,” said Juulsen.

The next item on the agenda for Juulsen is taking part in Canada’s National Junior Team development camp. He’ll be looking to crack the Team Canada lineup for the 2016 World Junior Championship.

The Canadiens third round pick from June’s Draft, Lukas Vejdemo, will also head to a junior development camp in August for Team Sweden. Vejdemo was on the ice today scoring a first period goal on a penalty shot for Team White as they cruised to a 6-3 win.

Team White got out to a 3-0 first period lead with goals from defenseman Ryan Johnston, Vejdemo and Taylor Burke. It was Zach Fucale’s first tough outing of the camp.

Jeremy Gregoire made the score 4-0 for White after Mathew Mancina had replaced Fucale in the Team Red goal. It appeared that Gregoire’s goal would be the only marker in the second period but after review during the second intermission, Dryden Hunt, was credited with a goal for Team Red.

In the third period, Team White increased their lead with a an early goal from Angelo Miceli.  The teams would then trade goals with Johnston scoring his second of the game for White and Team Red getting contributions from Daniel Carr and Ryan Rosenthal.

Besides the goal scorers, once again, Mike McCarron grabbed the eye during the scrimmage. He tapped his stick on the ice several times to get the attention of his linemates seemingly wanting to get in on the goal parade for Team White.  Artturi Lehkonen stood out as well showing his quick acceleration on the transition to offense.  He could be a player that is being talked about next summer after another season with Frölunda.

Coming into development camp, five players were being talked about as potential solutions for Marc Bergevin’s inability to add offense to the Canadiens roster.  Nothing happened during camp to change that conversation. So will the Habs GM stand pat over the summer hoping that Daniel Carr, Sven Andrighetto or Charles Hudon can make the opening night roster after an AHL season or two? Or perhaps Bergevin is banking on Mike McCarron or Nikita Scherbak making a bigger leap to claim a spot with the big club.

McCarron was the most bold of the group following Thursday’s game saying, “The way I look at it is, nobody can stop me when I’m going full speed and nobody can take the puck off me. That’s the way I think. I don’t know if that’s being cocky or not, but I just want to hold the puck as long as I can and take pucks to the net and be strong on pucks.”

Many of these players will be back in Montreal for Canadiens rookie camp in September.

Development camp scrimmage no. 3 – July 9, 2015 

Injured
38 Nikita Scherbak
59 Dalton Thrower
54 Noah Juulsen
62 Mark MacMillan
42 Sven Andrighetto
40 Connor Crisp
90  Travis Brown

Not present
63 Jake Evans

Noah Juulsen

Mike McCarron

Markus Eisenschmid