It is September. That means it is about time for the New York Rangers to open their Rookie Camp. For the 2025-2026 season, it is a mixed blessing. One one, attendees are motivated to impress. Conversely, most of the current unsigned prospects will not be attending camp.
It is not a good thing. Out of 16 unsigned prospects — unless those who play in Europe leave their teams to attend — there will be just four current prospects in attendance. There will be some of the newer AHL prospects and several invited free agents. Outside of Gabe Perreault, however, there will not be any of the top prospects at Rookie Camp. To find players to watch, dig a bit deeper.
Rookie Camp: Who’s Coming, Who’s Not?
Right now, it looks like Nathan Aspinall, Raoul Boilard, Evan Passmore, and Artyom Gonchar are the sure unsigned prospects who will be in attendance. They are currently at training camp with their respective junior teams. Those who are signed to European teams are not expected to attend since for all of them, their season is underway.
Malcom Spence will not be there as he will be at the University of Michigan attending classes. Neither will Sean Barnhill (Michigan State), E. J. Emery (Wisconsin), Ty Henricks (Western Michigan, Drew Fortescue (Boston College), Rasmus Larsson (Robert Morris), and Brody Lamb (Minnesota) and that is not good for the Rangers.
The Rangers have a serious talent shortage in their system and having so few prospects who are entering the system means a drain on the level of talent withing the system. Training camp is the best time for the young prospects to learn from the veterans on the things they need to learn how to do if they want to play in the NHL.
It is one thing to simply say that to make it to the NHL you need to do X, Y, and Z but nothing gets the message across better than to see an Artemi Panarin in person doing those things. Nothing is a better teacher to the prospects than to be on the ice with the veterans and watching them train for the new season.
Training camp is also the best opportunity for the coaches and trainers to see what the prospects did over the summer to get ready for this upcoming season. They can work with the prospects and teach them the things that the coaching staff want to see them improve at.
But if you are not at Rookie Camp then you are not going to be able to work on those things.
Player to watch in Rookie Camp
Nathan Aspinall
One of the tall prospects as Aspinall is 6’7 and the more offensively gifted of the Rangers giant sized players. Aspinall is coming off a 17 goal season with the Flint Firebirds (OHL) and the Firebirds are expecting Aspinall to almost double his goal output.
Artyom Gonchar
The only European draft pick to make the move from Russia to the CHL, Gonchar joined the Sudbury Wolves of the OHL and has played in two preseason games so far.
His strengths are his passing skills as Sudbury has been using him on their power play unit. Let us see how well he adapts to the North American game this year.
Thinking Aloud
With the changes to how long NHL teams hold the rights to their draft picks, now more than ever if a prospect was serious about an NHL career, then he should seriously consider coming over to North America to show what he can do.
The one who I think would have benefited from coming over the most is Samuel Jung, the Rangers 2025 sixth round pick. He is playing junior hockey in Finland and just my opinion but junior hockey in either the USHL or the CHL would be a better teacher for him than junior hockey in Finland.
It would be a different story if he were playing at the adult level, but he is not and he, at 6’3 175 pounds, should be showing what he can do here.
