sportsnet.ca
Every summer, hundreds of undrafted and unsigned teenagers get invited to NHL prospect development, conditioning, and training camps. By now, almost all of the NHL teams have held their preliminary prospect camps, used mainly to introduce new draft picks to the NHL style of training and get an in-person look at the progress of their old draft picks.
A little over a thousand prospects have attended these camps this summer, with nearly 250 of those being invitees hoping to catch the eye of someone in the organization. It’s tough to get exact numbers on invitees, as not all teams publish their camp rosters and many invitees will attend multiple camps. When training camps open in September, some of these invitees will return, joined by more hopefuls eyeing a spot on an NHL depth chart, no matter how far down.
Of these hundreds, a tiny fraction will earn NHL contracts. Every single one of these invitees is an underdog: a player has to be damned impressive at a prospect camp to get management to take their attention away from their prized draft picks. That said, there’s usually a reason a player warrants an invite to camp in the first place: some spark of potential, or an impressive playoff run, or an outstanding season as an older player in junior.
Michael Houser was invited to prospect camps based on all three of these things over the last three years: this summer, he finally beat the odds and got his NHL contract with the Florida Panthers. But beating the odds is nothing new for Houser.
