(Boston University captain and Bruins prospect Matt Grzelcyk is one of several future NHLers to watch at The Beanpot. Photo credit: Steve McLaughlin/BU Athletics)

It’s that special time of the year again where the four major college hockey schools in Boston (Boston College, Boston University, Harvard and Northeastern) come together in the first two weeks for The Beanpot.

This year’s field is expected to be wide open. BC has won five straight Beanpots, while BU is looking for their first since 2009 and Harvard and Northeastern will look to spoil the party.

To kick off our coverage of The Beanpot, your’s truly conducted a Q&A with prospects guru and all around good guy Kirk Luedeke. You can follow his insights on Twitter at @kluedeke29.

Tim Rosenthal: There’s plenty of Bruins prospects featured in The Beanpot this year. Before we get into specifics about each player’s strengths and weaknesses, what should B’s fan expect from Matt Grzelcyk, Ryan Fitzgerald and Matt Benning?

Kirk Luedeke: All three bring a variety of positive traits for their respective NCAA teams and are worth following as longer-term options for the Bruins as they continue their development. Each player is different in what they bring to the table in terms of style and substance, but they’ve shown promise in the several years since Boston drafted them. In the case of Grzelcyk and Fitzgerald, you have two local kids who grew up around the Bruins and have interesting back stories in terms of their connections to the organization. Benning does as well, given his uncle is former B’s assistant GM and current Vancouver GM Jim Benning. So, the recurring theme with all three is that they have a strong sense of the team’s values and organizational culture already, and as they continue to progress in their NCAA careers, they’ll be in a good position to apply those experiences positively when they turn pro.

TR: The “puck moving defenseman” label for Matt Grzelcyk is appropriate for him, thus he draws some comparisons with former Terrier David Warsofsky and current blue-liner Torey Krug. Another factor into those comparisons is his size. I know you aren’t big on comparisons because every player in the NHL is different regardless of size and labels. But as teams look to get offense from their defense, do you see a future in the BU captain, and how would you scout his game defensively?

KL: I think that Grzelcyk understands the position pretty well and is effective in taking the right angles and doing the little things that are important for a defenseman such as controlling his gaps, stick positioning, and a general ability to see the ice and read/react to developing plays in his own end. Where Grzelcyk runs into challenges is the same as it is for most undersized defenders, and that is when he has to match up physically with bigger, stronger opponents who can use their sheer bulk and strength to overpower him in a 1-on-1 matchup.

With smalller defensemen like Grzelcyk its more a matter of refining their game to play smarter and use their smarts and wheels to keep opponents to the outside as opposed to forcing them into a lot of situations where they have to take on bigger, heavier players. He has the instincts to play within Claude Julien’s system, but with a player like Grzelcyk you want to employ him to his strengths offensively, while understanding that he has some physical limitations that will at times come into play in the defensive end. You mitigate that by pairing him with the right partner and by encouraging him to play within his limitations and not trying to do too much.

TR: Ryan Fitzgerald had some big shoes to fill this season with the departures of Johnny Gaudreau, Bill Arnold and Kevin Hayes from a year ago. After a midseason slump, he seems to be finding his groove again. What type of improvements (from what you’ve seen) have you noticed from him?

KL: I’ve always felt that Fitzgerald is a gifted player and that he would excel at the Division 1 level. Sometimes the key to breaking a slump can be something as simple as taking a “less is more” approach and slowing things down and just having fun with it. Fitzgerald has been a bit of a streaky scorer this season in that his goals tend to come in bunches, so it’s probably more a matter of simplifying things a bit and just getting pucks to the net and making the higher-percentage play.

It gets harder and harder to score from the outside as you go up in the levels of hockey, so players like Fitzgerald have to show a willingness to go into traffic and the greasy areas of the ice in and around the net where the quality of scoring chances increase. He thinks the game at such a high level and is highly creative, so while not possessing Gaudreau’s game-breaking speed and dynamic puck skills, Fitzgerald brings the versatility along with scoring that makes him such a valuable player on that BC team.

TR: Matt Benning may not be the biggest defenseman (at 6’0”, 203 pounds), but the prospect reports suggest that he’s a pretty strong kid for his size and likes to get his hands dirty. Offensively this year, he seems to be improving as well as he already notched 14 points heading into the weekend before the Beanpot. He’s just a sophomore and will probably need to play all four seasons at Northeastern, but is there a future for Benning in the NHL?

KL: I think he does have an NHL future, but what that is – probably anyone’s guess at this point. In his favor are the bloodlines and the fact that both of his father and uncle played in the NHL and did it with the similar size he has. One thing I really like about Matty Benning is that he plays bigger than his listed 6-foot height – he can really hit and understands where he’s got to make his bones, and that’s in the trenches. Now, doing it against college players is one thing, he’ll have to prove he can play a smart and physical game in the pro ranks, but at every level to date, he’s done a good job of playing within himself and lowering the boom with a physical, but disciplined game. Benning makes guys think twice about cutting across the ice, and that’s a good thing.

He’s not a high-end talent, but he does make a good first pass and doesn’t get enough credit for being an effective puck mover at times. He’s not going to put up big points in any situation, but he can be that guy that you put out to protect a lead late in a one-goal game. Every successful NHL club has someone like a Matt Benning who isn’t the centerpiece of your defense corps but who can go out, log a lot of minutes, play well defensively and chip in some offense on occasion. I don’t know that he can make it in Boston, but he’s not looked out of place at all in his time at Northeastern.

TR: He’s a year away but Ryan Donato was a second round pick in last year’s draft. Should be interesting come next year to see him don the Crimson sweater with his father coaching him. What can we expect from him when he enters the collegiate landscape?

KL: I liked Ryan a lot in his draft year and he’s done a lot to get Dexter back in the swing of things in the prep standings this year after a sluggish start. He’s got a high-end offensive hockey IQ and can beat you a lot of different ways. He’s bigger than his father though not as fast, but he’s a powerful skater who has some deceptive speed that I’ve seen him use to catch defenders flat-footed with. One thing I really respected about Donato last year in particular is that a lot of teams sold out to stop him and most nights, despite the checking attention he got, they still couldn’t do it. He’s a gamer who can control the tempo and flow of a contest, but he’s real raw with a lot of developmental years ahead before he’ll be ready to compete for an NHL job.

As for what we can expect – with Jimmy Vesey tearing it up for the Crimson this year, he might be a good candidate to be signed by Nashville this spring, so Donato would have an opportunity to step in and play more of an offensive role to offset that potential key loss if it happens. He may need some time to acclimate, but Donato should evolve into more of a scoring role soon enough.

TR: Of course, it wouldn’t be a Beanpot Q&A (for this year) without discussing Jack Eichel and Noah Hanifin. Both players are eligible for this year’s Draft and both should be selected in the first round with Eichel being one of the top two picks. What makes those two stand out from some of the other prospects playing in this tournament?

KL: The biggest thing is how mature and poised they are for guys as young. Sometimes we forget that they are freshmen, but I think how well they’ve done in the NCAA speaks to the importance of their time spent with the National Team Developmental Program in Ann Arbor. They’re used to playing against D1 competition and got a taste of it before they ever got to BU and BC, so I think that has helped them to stand out for their respective teams. In the end, I’d say that they just bring a higher talent level to the mix, but they also have the confidence to leverage that advantage better than most who arrive as freshmen but haven’t had the opportunity to compete against NCAA teams at a younger age the way the NTDP players get to do.

TR: The McDavid-Eichel debate will heat up again when the two take center stage in June. Aside from the discussion of Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin five years ago, do you remember as much hype surrounding the top two draft picks?

KL: No, and the hype is legitimate. To me, Connor McDavid is one and Eichel is two, but whoever comes away with the BU superstar is getting one heck of a player. What makes the buzz worth it is that McDavid has the look of a potential generational-type player who will be an NHL All-Star for years, but Eichel also carries with him some legitimate high-end All-Star caliber upside as well. You talked about 2010, but it’s also reminiscent of 2004 when you had two terrific players go 1 and 2 in Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin. What’s good news for the team picking third is that they might just land a gem in Hanifin, unlike the disappointment Chicago had in terms of how Cam Barker turned out that year after missing out on those two. That may have been for the best, as I can’t imagine a Blackhawks team with Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews *and* one of Ovechkin or Malkin in the lineup in terms of the nasty factor the rest of the league would face.

TR: We’ve spent a lot of time discussing future Bruins and Jack Eichel and Noah Hanafin, I feel like we’ve left some other solid prospects out of this. Who else should we keep an eye on in this year’s Beanpot?

KL: I mentioned him earlier, but Predators 2012 third-rounder Jimmy Vesey is from North Reading, Mass. and is having a tremendous year at Harvard with 17 goals and 30 points in 18 games for Ted Donato. Vesey played with Grzelcyk at Belmont Hill and the two are close friends having grown up together and played on youth teams coached by Vesey’s father, Jim Sr. (Charlestown) a Merrimack College legend and former Blues Bruins forward.

I think Thatcher Demko, second-round pick for Vancouver, is someone to watch as well. He deserved a better fate than the one he got at the WJC in my view, and he’s getting better and better for the Eagles. He’s a great athlete and tough competitor.

Beyond the obviously talented scoring winger in Sharks prospect Danny O’Regan, I’d like to see BU freshman and 2015 draft eligible A.J. Greer get more of a look than he’s gotten thus far. A year ago, he was a dominant power forward at Kimball Union Academy. He plays a heavy game and has some untapped offensive potential that we haven’t really seen come to the fore yet.

Kevin Roy is the big gun for the Huskies and the Anaheim fourth-rounder has been someone they’ve counted on offensively over the past three seasons. He’s the kind of player who could get hot and become a real problem for opponents in a short tourney like the Beanpot, but not sure about NU’s depth and how it holds up to the favorites.

TR: Finally, it’s prediction time. BC has won the last five Beanpots. Do they make it six in a row? Does BU get their first “BU Invitational” win since 2009? Can Harvard continue their impressive run? Can Northeastern “shock the Hub?” Who do you got, Kirk, and why?

KL: I think it’s a wide-open field, to be honest. I mean- BC and BU have garnered a lot of the press this year, and Terrier fans have to be excited about their chances going into it because that team has a lot of skill and depth. BC is no easy mark, either- they’re getting some nice production this year from Wild 1st-rounder Alex Tuch, who is building on his strong showing at the WJC. I wouldn’t count out NU, either—it’s a mistake to overlook anyone these days and they’re capable of putting up a fight. As I said previously, their depth on paper is a question mark, but all it takes is two wins for a Beanpot Trophy.

However, since you asked for a prediction – I’m going with BU this time because they’re hungry, balanced and can sense the opportunity is there for them. At some point, the law of averages will catch up to BC, though they continue to be a top program capable of contending for a Hockey East and NCAA championship every year. BU will get back to past glory, but it’s a close call.

I do like Harvard as a spoiler, potential upset candidate because Steve Michalek can steal games in net. Not many folks are aware or even remember that in 2010, he was with Johnny Gaudreau in leading Team USA to a silver medal at the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tourney (Under-18 select). That’s an August competition that Canada pretty much owns every year because they can send their best draft-eligible major junior players to unlike the Under-18 championship in April, when many guys are in the thick of the playoffs. Michalek gave up just one goal in a 1-0 loss- to 2011 1st overall pick and Oilers center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in the gold medal game that year. He is back on track this year after some setbacks at Harvard before, and with the way that Crimson offense is firing in the ECAC, they could ruin someone’s Beanpot dreams.

TR: (One Harvard defenseman we forgot to mention who is also a Bruins prospect in this Q&A is Wiley Sherman, a Bruins fifth round pick in 2015. The 6-foot-7 freshman does have one assist in 19 games on the season and is a primarily a stay at home defenseman. I’ll be interested to see if he’ll be matched up against Eichel in Tuesday’s semifinal vs. BU.)

Thanks as always for your insight, Kirk. You can catch his work over at Red Line Report as well as the New England Hockey Journal and New York Hockey Journal. Be sure to catch his latest top 10 rankings of Bruins prospects that include David Pastrnak and Malcolm Subban