Like most teams, the Estevan Bruins have confidence in all the players they've signed or traded for this offseason. There's some extra excitement around their latest signing, however, who brings size, skill, and a wicked shot to their forward group. 

With the recent signing of former QMJHLer Mark Rumsey, the Bruins are now loaded to the rafters at forward with plenty of incoming and returning scoring talent. Rumsey is the latest in a series of talented 2001-born forwards to join the team. 

"He's a big body that has a good skill set and has been at the major junior level and done well at the major junior level," said Bruins head coach and GM Jason Tatarnic. "Being a half-point-per-game guy as an 18-year-old, obviously there are some offensive capabilities there. We're excited to get him here."

Rumsey actually did slightly better than a half-point-per game in his first season, split between the Moncton Wildcats and the Acadie-Bathurst Titan. He posted 29 points in 55 games as an 18-year-old, and while his numbers slipped a bit last season (11 points in 30 games) that's not a major concern for the Bruins. 

"It's during the pandemic and then he got moved halfway in between that," Tatarnic said. "I think it was a difficult year for everyone. I don't want to say last year was a wash or anything like that.... but I'm not going to put a lot of stock into last year because it was just such an unfortunate year for everyone."

While Tatarnic did say he expects Rumsey to come in with something to prove, the tools and the time are there to prove it. Unlike many CHL players, who often come to the SJHL midway through the season, Rumsey will be in Estevan from day one and will have a three-week training camp to prepare for it.

Perhaps the most important thing for the Bruins, however, is the will to win, and Rumsey demonstrated that in the earliest part of their conversations. Like the other players they've brought in, winning a national championship is first and foremost on his mind. 

"The biggest thing for us, when we went out and did our recruiting for this year, we talked to some of these major junior guys and if we didn't hear that they wanted to win a national championship in the first 15 seconds, we moved on," Tatarnic said. "All the guys we talked to that are coming here, that's a goal of theirs."

The pieces for than national championship team are beginning to fall into place. Though many things are yet to be decided and will need a full training camp to sort out, the picture is becoming clearer of what the team will look like come the fall.

"We believe we did some good research with everyone's character," said Tatarnic. "We feel our team should come together really well in terms of how they interact with each other. It'll be exciting to see them all on the ice at once. We do have a few more things we have to do. I think we've taken care of our offense and our goaltending, and maybe there might be a piece here and there on the defensive side to look at. That's our next step, to review our d-core and see what we want to do there."