CamSquiresProspectWatch

Cam Squires remembers hearing it clearly.

“Competing is like breathing. If you’re going to be a Devil, you’ve got to compete.”

Sitting listening to Tom Fitzgerald, General Manager of the New Jersey Devils, to begin the 2024 Training Camp, Fitzgerald’s words were loud and clear.

And they were poignant.

“It’s a thing that requires no talent,” Squires remembers Fitzgerald saying. “That’s something you should bring every day; it’s one of the most important things.”

“He said it with such authority, with such meaning,” Squires said. “Because of that, it just kind of hit me; it really stuck with me.”

What also has struck him, through his two training camps, is what he was able to take away from watching and working with players like Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt.

"They make everybody feel included in the group," he said of their noticable leadership qualities, that he said are quiet but meaningful. "Jesper Bratt, everybody knows how naturally he goes about his days, how much he works on his craft. He's such a gifted skated. That's a guy I look up to in that sense of his game. Both him and Nico. They're just great leaders."

The 19-year-old has carried not only Fitzgerald's words, but the leadership qualities of both Hischier and Bratt with him as he worked his way through Devils camp, into his first preseason game, and then back to Junior with his Cape Breton Eagles of the Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League.

Cam Squires Preseason

After playing his first NHL preseason game with the Devils in Philadelphia, he was back in Cape Breton and on the ice with the Eagles less than 24 hours after the end of the Devils/Flyers game. It was a whirlwind, he said, and it took some time to adjust back to being in Junior.

“Guys always think sometimes it's maybe easier coming back, in a sense of the game's a little bit slower and whatnot,” Squires began. “But I think sometimes it’s tough because you go from the players you're playing with up (at an NHL training camp) obviously they’re great players, but it's just every pass is tape-to-tape, guys are right where they need to be all the time. And in a sense of coming back, it's almost, you need to take a step back and just kind of process things a little bit more and not rush it, right? You’re finding a different rhythm.”

Admittedly, Squires had a slower start to the season than he would have hoped from, coming back from New Jersey's training camp, but when Squires' rhythm started to match the beat of the game, he took off.

Squires Cape Breton 1

In December, he had six goals and seven assists, and five multi-point games out of the eight the Eagles played.

The highlight was a hat trick, completed in style, scoring a Michigan Goal against the Val D’Or Foreurs.

“I'd say that'll be one that'll sit with me for the rest of my life,” Squires said. “I still get asked that question, like, if I practiced it, or if I'll try it again and stuff. But I just remember, it was kind of in slow motion.

“The puck was coming down,” he detailed the goal. “I just ended up going backward, and I just tried it, and I couldn't even believe it. You kind of see it on my face when it went in. I still can't believe it worked, but thinking back on it now, it was really cool to be able to pull that off in that situation, to do it and at game speed, it was fun.”

Squires was New Jersey's fourth-round selection, 122nd overall, in the 2023 NHL Draft, both a short and long time ago, Squires explains. There's so much ahead of him and he's grown so much since then.

"I've always said the days are kind of long and months just fly by in this league," he said. "Like, yeah, it's been a while, but to look back and just think the draft was that long ago, it's kind of crazy. You look back; you have just gained so much respect and appreciation for how you've got to where you are and the steps that you've taken along the way."

For Squires, the guidance of the New Jersey staff throughout his Junior career has been integral to building his game. He frequently checks in with Devils director of Player Development Meghan Duggan and player development coach Mark Voakes.

"Meghan and her staff are unbelievable," he said. "They're always checking in. And even on the away games, on Sunday afternoons in the middle of Quebec, they're still watching. So it's great to have support. You know those people who care about you, and they want you to push your game to the next level, and they have the confidence, and they've shown that in me, that it can get there."

But for now, Squires is entirely focused on the playoff push the Eagles are making, knowing that this will be his last go-around in Junior hockey before jumping to the pros. He's played over 200 games in the QMJHL and while there's plenty of anticipation for what's next, he's concentrated on what's right in front of him and is beholden to where his hockey journey has come and where it's going.

"I just appreciate all the people around me, good teammates," he said. "I've been fortunate to be in a great organization for four years, and now to have the Devils organization, to be a part of them, they've shown nothing but great support. And I'm excited to move on from one great organization to another."