Who are those guys?

Welcome to the 2022 edition of the Anaheim Ducks Rookie Camp Invites breakdown. The Anaheim Ducks announced the roster for the upcoming Rookie Faceoff tournament, the most wonderful time of the year for those that are Ducks future-talent-inclined. As always – the roster features a mix of very recent and semi recent draft selections with at least three or four Anaheim Ducks Rookie Camp Invites. This year I made an attempt to guess who some of these invitees might be and failed miserably but hey better luck next year I guess.

So who are the Anaheim Ducks Rookie Camp Invites for this years camp and what can we gleam from their backgrounds or potential connections? Read on to find out.

Forwards

The Ducks are rolling with 14 forwards this year – allowing room for just the one camp invite. Looking over the names on the roster this appears to be largely because some of the players from older drafts such as Blake McLaughlin (2018) are being given a chance to experience the tournament for their first time – having spent the previous years at College and being unable to attend.

#69 – Julien Beland – LW/C – 6’4″ – 190lbs – 19 years old – Rimouski Oceanic (QMJHL)

Beland went undrafted in the most recent 2022 NHL entry draft after contributing 29 points in 56 games in his first year in the Q – good for ninth in scoring on the Oceanic. The connection here is the Ducks 2021 third round selection Tyson Hinds who was on the Oceanic until he was traded in February to the Sherbrooke Phoenix. It was for this reason that I didn’t take too long a look at the Rimouski roster in my camp-invitee guessing exercise (not really an excuse I know). He was ranked 195th among North American skaters at the most recent draft and from what I can gather without seeing any highlights or game clips is he is a tenacious energy guy. Using his size for net-front presence on offense but also relentless at winning possession back on the defensive side. As per these stats from QC Andy Lehoux.

He also attended the post-2022 draft development camp, along with a defensemen and two goaltenders and returns again as the lone forward. As is his modus operandi – Verbeek clearly likes his size but also probably his compete; keep an eye on how well he does at winning puck battles against the mix of experience and talented youth at this tournament.

This years crop of forwards have significantly less experience than last season but Trevor Zegras, BO Groulx and Bryce Kindopp are stepping aside to allow Jacob Perreault and Brayden Tracey to shine while also offering a chance for second year attendees such as Sean Tschigerl, Sasha Pastujov and Mason McTavish to take the next step.

Defense

#53 – Charles Cote – LD – 6’6″ – 192lbs – 18 years old – Rimouski Oceanic (QMJHL)

Another former teammate of Tyson Hinds and current colleague of Julien Beland. Again he has size and reads mostly as a mean shutdown defensemen. He had 8 points in 35 games for Rimouski last season while a quick scan of twitter indicates he is quite familiar with the penalty box (25 PIMs across 35 games last season backs that up). I don’t really know what else to say about him other than maybe expect some big potentially borderline hits.

#58 – Luka Profaca – RD – 6’2″ – 181lbs – 20 years old – Guelph Storm (QMJHL)

Keeping with the Q and along the same current prospect connection route – Profaca played on the same squad as Sasha Pastujov last season. He had 13 assists in 49 games during his draft year in 2019-2020 and did not play the year after due to the OHL being completely shutdown during the height of the Pandemic. As well as the Ducks development camp in July, Profaca attended the Dallas Stars camp last season as a 19 year old before going back to Guelph where he set career highs across all categories – totaling 25 points in 65 games. He finished 14th on the team in scoring. Scanning twitter gives an indication that he is another hard-nosed defensive defensemen who many were surprised was not selected in the most recent draft as an overager. Scott Wheeler’s OHL Coaches Poll twitter thread mentions him several times.

If anything – I can see Profaca joining Tulsa and making his way up much like Marleau did last season. Keep an eye on this one.

The remaining names suiting up at defense are likely going to make the Ducks the envy of the tournament with all three promising selections from the 2022 draft in Pavel Mintyukov, Noah Warren and Tristan Luneau being joined by 2021 second round steal Olen Zellweger, his fellow 2021 selection Tyson Hinds and the highly touted Drew Helleson acquired in the Josh Manson trade.

In Net

#78 – Brayden Peters – CL – 6’1″ – 205lbs – 20 years old – Calgary Hitmen (WHL)

With the Ducks selecting the largely unheard of nor seen Vyacheslav Buteyets in the sixth round of the most recent draft and with Russia still currently engaged in a needless and unjustified invasion of Ukraine – its no surprise he has not appeared on this roster nor the development camp one back in July.

Enter Brayden Peters. The 20 year old number one netminder for the Hitmen saw 47 games of action and posted a 21-23-3 record on a rebuilding club that saw its star defender traded at the start of the season. He had three shutouts while holding a respective .906 SV% down (16th in the league) and a 2.98 GAA. Peters is small by today’s standards for goaltenders – coming in at an inch shorter than Lukas Dostal – another of his position that is considered small. But like Dostal – what he lacks in size he makes up for with athleticism and quick reactions. His glove also appears to be particularly good from the brief glance I saw of his highlights.

It will be interesting to see how he and Alexander contrast given their vast difference in height as the Ducks roll with the two across the three games.

You can attend the camp on Thursday the 15th at Great Parks Ice and the tournament starts Friday the 16th September – no word on the Ducks site on whether games will be streamed but given the Sharks site mentions audio only I am guessing that is what we will be stuck with.