Frosh week begins on Thursday for the Ottawa Senators.

The Senators announced on Wednesday that 25 fresh faces will participate in the Prospect Showdown, hosted by the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre this weekend.

The club’s newcomers will be on the ice Thursday afternoon and Friday morning at the Bell Sensplex in Kanata before boarding the Iron Lung to Montreal to prepare to face the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday at 1 p.m.

The Senators will close out the tourney on Sunday night at the Bell Centre against the Winnipeg Jets.

Belleville Senators coach David Bell and his staff will be behind the bench for these two games.

Steve Staios, the club’s president of hockey operations and general manager, Dave Poulin, the club’s senior vice president of hockey operations, along with head coach Travis Green and his staff, will all be in attendance.

Once the tourney wraps up, the Senators will make a final decision on how many of the rookies will take part in the club’s main camp at the Canadian Tire Centre.

That gets underway with medicals on Wednesday, with the first on-ice session on Thursday. The Senators will host the Toronto Maple Leafs in a pre-season game on Sunday, Sept. 21, at 3 p.m.

Just how many of these rookies will be at main camp remains to be seen, but this competition gives the club’s hockey operations department an opportunity to see players in a competitive atmosphere.

It won’t hurt that these games are being held on one of the best stages in the league. Montreal loves hockey, and tickets are priced attractively, which means the games should be well attended.

Several eyes will be on top prospect Carter Yakemchuk, the club’s first-round pick in the 2024 National Hockey League draft. This is his second camp, and he pushed for a spot last fall before being sent back to the Western Hockey League’s Calgary Hitmen.

Yakemchuk was sent back to junior to help improve his defensive game, and we’ll find out fairly quickly in these rookie games if that’s the case.

“We want him to come in with the attitude of trying to make the hockey club as a young player,” Staios said. “We’ll have to be the gauge, and he’ll dictate that for us, but you gauge these young players to where they are in their development.

“We’re extremely encouraged by the steps he has taken, but also the ceiling of the talent of the player.”

Centre Stephen Halliday, a 2022 draft pick who spent last year in Belleville, is also among the participants. He had 19 goals and 51 points last year in the AHL.

The Senators don’t have a lot of job openings after making the playoffs for the first time in eight years last spring, but players want to put themselves in a position that the organization will consider a call-up.

The free agents who are part of the rookie roster will be trying to earn an invite to camp.

Other newcomers to keep an eye on are defencemen Jorian Donovan, Djibril Toure and Tomas Hamara.

Donovan was a fifth-round pick in 2022 who spent last season with the club’s American Hockey League team in Belleville. Toure and Hamara also suited up for Belleville last season and are still strong prospects.

This tournament will allow these players to get game experience this season before the likes of Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle, Dylan Cozens, Drake Batherson, Jake Sanderson and Thomas Chabot do so.

Several of the players chosen in last spring’s NHL draft will not be at the tourney because they are attending college and aren’t eligible to be at these camps.

But forward Blake Vanek will be there. He was selected No. 93 overall. Goaltender Lucas Beckman, who was taken at No. 97 from Baie Comeau, is among the three netminders.

Neither Leevi Merilainen nor Mads Sogaard will attend because both will compete for jobs at main camp. Both are on one-way NHL contracts this season, but one of them will be in the NHL.

Defenceman Logan Hensler, the No. 23 overall selection in June, is at the University of Wisconsin, along with winger Blake Montgomery and winger Bruno Idzan.

PROSPECT SHOWDOWN ROSTER

Forward

Tyler Boucher, Xavier Bourgault, Jake Chiasson, Philippe Daoust, Lucas Ellinas, Stephen Halliday, Landen Hookey, Danny Katic, Alex Mercier, Oskar Pettersson, Jamieson Rees, Carter Savoie, Blake Vanek, Mason Zebeski

Defence

Matthew Andonovski, Jorlan Donovan, Gabriel Eliasson, Tomas Hamara, Braiden Simmons-Fischer, Djibril Toure, Eerik Wallenius, Carter Yakemchuk

Goaltender

Lucas Beckman, Vladimir Nikitin, Jackson Parsons

bgarrioch@postmedia.com