How acquired: Selected with No. 28 pick in 2025 NHL Draft<\/p>\n
2025-26 season: Boston University (NCAA), 35 GP, 2-8-10<\/p>\n
Boumedienne (6-1, 175) is transferring to Ohio State University for 2026-27 after two seasons at Boston University. The 19-year-old is a highly touted puck-moving defenseman, who had four points (two goals, two assists) in seven games for Sweden at the 2026 World Junior Championship.<\/p>\n
Winnipeg is expected to be patient with Boumedienne as he develops into a well-rounded defenseman.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a tremendous skater and sees the ice really well and has good puck skills,\u201d Roy said. \u201cI think he has to physically get stronger for his size, because he\u2019s a big kid, he still has to grow into his body a little bit. But he\u2019s doing that; he works out hard in the offseason. He\u2019s going to be a good player in the National Hockey League. His skating ability and his ability to get back for pucks, evade forecheckers and get the puck going in the right direction up ice, he\u2019s got some great ability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Projected NHL arrival: Next season<\/p>\n
How acquired: Selected with No. 55 pick in 2022 NHL Draft<\/p>\n
2025-26 season: Manitoba (AHL), 29 GP, 1-8-9; Winnipeg (NHL), 32 GP, 1-4-5<\/p>\n
Salomonsson (6-0, 172) appears ready to make the jump to the NHL full time this season after spending the past season and a half in Manitoba of the AHL. He is a strong two-way defenseman who is adept at winning puck battles in the corner and in front of the net.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old had 27 points (five goals, 22 assists) in 53 games in his first season with Manitoba in 2024-25.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a very smart puck-moving defenseman. He can get the puck out of trouble, get shots off quickly,\u201d Roy said. \u201cHe\u2019s an excellent skater, gets his feet going in the right direction and gets on the right side of the puck breaking it out. Physically, he has to mature a little bit to play in the National Hockey League, and he\u2019s starting to do that, to understand the physical side of the game for him and playing on the smaller ice than what was over in Europe. He\u2019s another tremendous kid that\u2019s going to have a great future in the National Hockey League.\u201d<\/p>\n
Projected NHL arrival: This season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How acquired: Selected with No. 28 pick in 2025 NHL Draft 2025-26 season: Boston University (NCAA), 35 GP,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-879193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}