The QMJHL’s Newfoundland Regiment used the summer of 2026 to advertise its arrival on the national development map, sending a cluster of players to NHL rookie and development camps in the days following the 2026 NHL Entry Draft. For a franchise only one year into its life in St. John’s, having six players invited to the game’s highest professional pipeline was a striking marker of credibility.
The Regiment prospects fanned out across the league. Defenceman Alexis Mathieu, a 2025 fifth-round pick, attended the Anaheim Ducks’ camp, while forward Noah Laberge, also a 2025 fifth-rounder, reported to the Buffalo Sabres. Dawson Sharkey, a 2025 sixth-round selection, joined the Dallas Stars, where he was accompanied by teammate Justin Larose, who earned an invitation despite going undrafted. Latvian goaltender Mikus Vecvanags, a 2024 fifth-round pick, skated for the Montreal Canadiens, and goaltender Louis-Antoine Denault represented the Florida Panthers.
Denault’s summer carried the most weight. He was the lone Regiment player selected in the 2026 NHL Draft, taken 217th overall in the seventh round by Florida — the first player developed under the St. John’s banner to hear his name called at the draft. For a program still establishing its identity, having a homegrown selection turn immediately toward an NHL development camp is exactly the kind of validation that helps recruiting and fan investment alike.
Development camps are not competitive in the win-loss sense; they are auditions and orientations, where clubs put prospects through skating, skills and systems work while measuring maturity and coachability. Being there matters. An invitation signals that an NHL organization sees a future worth cultivating, and for junior players it offers a first, sober look at the professional standard they are chasing.
The Regiment’s presence was part of a broader QMJHL showing: reporting around the camps noted that dozens of players from the league were at NHL camps in the same window, with 20 QMJHL prospects selected in the 2026 draft. That the first-year Newfoundland club contributed a meaningful share of that traffic — six attendees, including drafted and invited players across five organizations — speaks to the talent the franchise assembled and to the QMJHL’s continuing role as a feeder to the NHL.
Note on sourcing: national outlets differed slightly in how many Regiment players they listed by name, and direct quotes or camp performance notes from the players were not published in the sources reviewed. The six-player roster above and the draft details are drawn from league and hockey-media reporting, and readers should treat player-by-player camp evaluations as unavailable rather than assumed.
For a team that only dropped its first puck in the fall of 2025, the summer of 2026 offered a clear message: the Newfoundland Regiment is already producing players the NHL wants a closer look at.
Sources: The Hockey News · CHL / LHJMQ · CHL — 2026 draft selections
