Rookie Camp Report: Jack Studnicka has bulked up, but is he still on outside looking in at a roster spot?

The Bruins won’t take part in full team workouts on the ice at Warrior until next week, but Boston did open the first stage of its training camp on Wednesday — with a number of the team’s top prospects beginning their rookie camp ahead of the 2021 Prospects Challenge in Buffalo. Here are a few highlights from Thursday’s skate.

Congrats, everyone. We’ve officially gone from the speculation-filled doldrums that are the dog days of the offseason and have turned the page to the equally perilous early stages of the preseason. 

You know what I mean. We’re at the juncture on the sporting calendar in which players return from their offseason endeavors, and sweeping generalizations are tossed out before said athlete even takes to the field, diamond or ice. 

It’s the stretch where “best shape of my life” is routinely tossed out in season-opening scrums and sports radio fills its dead air with barbs at a player that might look a little soft around the midsection. 

Indeed, we’re in silly season — and it’s important to note that offering hasty statements on a player’s upcoming season based on their appearance (both on and off the ice) will have you walking down a slippery slope filled with unrealistic expectations. 

Of course, it’s not just fans or media that fall into such a trap when it comes to first impressions. Because even Providence head coach Ryan Mougenel had to do a double-take upon spotting Jack Studnicka over at Warrior Ice Arena. 

"Just staying in town and making that commitment to getting bigger and getting stronger, for him it’s visible. I was shocked,” Mougenel said of Studnicka. “I hadn’t seen him in a couple weeks. He’s definitely put the work in of taking the message of getting bigger and stronger.”

After a disappointing 2021 campaign in which Studnicka failed to grab ahold of a fixed spot in Boston’s lineup, the 22-year-old pivot sure seemed to take criticism of his slender frame to heart.

For most of the summer, Studnicka remained in Massachusetts, taking to the ice at the Foxboro Sports Center and adding a good amount of bulk to his 6-foot-1 frame. His offseason efforts have indeed been easy to spot whenever he’s been on the ice, with the youngster far more assertive when it comes to bringing the puck down low and operating in Grade-A ice.

Granted, Studnicka’s willingness to scrap in the dirty areas and generate looks out of navigating through high-danger ice has always been a fixture of his game, but those efforts were often rendered fruitless upon getting knocked off the puck by a player with an extra 20+ pounds on him. 

Now, with a bit more brawn tacked on, perhaps Studnicka can fare a bit better when operating with the puck down — giving him a chance to carve out a more consistent scoring output than his slim pickings put forward last year (3 points in 20 NHL games). 

Of course, a fluctuation in weight does not always signal a player turning a corner in their development or production. After all, David Backes managed to significantly slim down in 2019 in an effort to build more speed into his game, only for his production to once again dip. 

And even with a strong showing in camp, Studnicka’s spot up in the NHL is far from a guarantee — not after Boston spent big in free agency to shore up its bottom-six unit with veterans like Nick Foligno, Erik Haula and Tomas Nosek.

The best way to change such sentiment regarding Boston's depth chart? Turn heads over the next couple of weeks — and with a frame now better equipped to handle the bruising nature of NHL hockey, Studnicka could have a few NHL regulars looking over their shoulder during camp. 

“Will it translate to his game? I’m sure it will,” Mougenel said of Studnicka. “Again, Jack is one of those players that’s knocking on the door. We forget how young -- he’s still on his entry-level deal. He’s a special player. I think the one thing that comes out of it is that he did what we wanted him to do, which is get bigger and stronger. Now it’s up to Jack. He’s gonna get some opportunity here. ... It’s up to Jack. We can talk about how much stronger and how much faster he’s gotten, but now it needs to translate to his game, which I’m sure it will.”

Ahcan looking to carve out his own identity

For as much as a playmaking blueliner like Jack Ahcan operates with the same chip on his shoulder that plenty of other undersized D-men carry, not all players that fit Ahcan’s profile are cut from the same cloth. 

For example, it’d be easy to harp on the fact that Ahcan’s road to the NHL is blocked in some respects by the presence of another undersized defenseman on the left side in Matt Grzelcyk. But from Mougenel’s perspective, height might be the only thing both D-men have in common. 

"They're different players,” Mougenel said of comparing Ahcan and Grzelcyk. “And the fact that Jack has that strength and that ability to box a player out — is he always going to win that battle? Probably not. But Grizz is just smart. He's not getting in those net-front battles. He's fronting more pucks. And he's defending with his feet and his stick — and that's something that I think Grizz is exceptional at. 

“And that took time for him to develop at the National League level. I think the one thing about Jack is he has the IQ to do that. He's built a little bit differently than Grizz. You know he's really built. He's almost like a fire hydrant. He's strong and stocky, and he gets under sticks.”

Indeed, for as much as Ahcan has regularly piled on points at every stop of his hockey career (103 points in 144 games at St. Cloud State / 10 points in 19 games with Providence), the Minnesota native is a unique player — more than willing to throw his weight around against any skater that comes into his crosshairs. 

For as much as the next wave of B’s blueliners have often revolved around familiar names in the system like Jakub Zboril, Jeremy Lauzon and Urho Vaakanainen — Ahcan has a good chance of leapfrogging some names in the pipeline and put himself on the cusp of the NHL roster again with another strong start down in the AHL ranks.  

Even though his brief stint up with Boston at the tail end of last season saw the rookie hit some bumps along the road against top competition, one of the staples of Ahcan’s game – in Mougenel’s eyes — has been the blueliner’s willingness to mold and evolve his play with each passing season.

"The one thing that I love about Jack is he's going to make an impact on the game, no matter what,” Mougenel said. “And again, he's one of those kids that's super committed to getting better. The one thing I would say about even his size — he's not a guy that has a lot of length, but he's got a lot of inside ability and leverage.”

Froden a wild card

While most of the participants in the 2021 Prospects Challenge are either youngsters making their first leap into pro hockey or AHL regulars looking to build off of a strong opening campaign with Providence, forward Jesper Froden presents an interesting case.

The 2021-22 campaign will indeed be his first season in North America, but the forward is far and away the most seasoned player on Boston’s Prospect Challenge roster as far as age is concerned — with the Swede set to turn 27 on September 21st. 

He’s no spring chicken, at least as far as prospects go, but Froden could be an intriguing addition to Boston’s pipeline, considering he spent the last couple of years stuffing the stat sheet in the SHL. After posting 29 points over 49 games with Skellefteå AIK in 2019-20, Froden followed that up by racking up 40 points over 52 games — ranking 10th in league scoring in 2020. 

(Fun fact: Providence Bruins legend Carter Camper ranked 5th in SHL scoring last season with 46 points in 46 games). 

Of course, any player coming overseas and making the jump to North American hockey, especially at Froden’s age,  presents quite the risk — but also plenty of room for reward if his scoring statline follows him to New England. 

“I think we have to be patient with where he is,” Mougenel said of Froden. “He’s never played across the pond. There’s going to be a little bit of time for him to get adjusted and acclimated to the size of the rink, the pace, the size of the guys, but obviously expectations are higher. He had a fantastic year last year. 

I watched him in Worlds, he had a great Worlds. Obviously a pretty special player, somebody that’s gonna push. Again, somebody with that skill set and that vision that the Bruins seem to do an amazing job of finding. So expectations are probably higher for him, just based on his pro experience. And not just because he’s had results, but because we have more of an idea of the identity of the player than some of these kids who are coming up and just kind of finding their way.”