Canada leaves skill at home in favour of balanced team
Hockey Canada announced its roster for the World Junior Championships in Buffalo well before the tournament’s deadline on Christmas Day, giving us plenty of time to dissect the team’s strange decisions.
Rather than loading the team with the country’s best U-20 prospects with the highest NHL draft pedigree, head coach Dominique Ducharme and his staff ultimately decided to put together a balanced roster filled with more mature two-way players.
Forwards
C: Sam Steel, Robert Thomas, Michael McLeod, Brett Howden.
LW: Dillon Dube, Boris Katchouk, Alex Formenton, Jonah Gadjovich, Maxime Comtois.
RW: Taylor Raddysh, Jordan Kyrou, Tyler Steenbergen, Drake Batherson.
This forward group is certainly the point of contention when it comes to Canada’s roster. Cody Glass and Nick Suzuki, who are scoring at a high pace in the OHL and WHL respectively, were left off the roster in favour of Alex Formenton, who’s known for more of a checking game.
Still, Canada has a lot of high-quality talent on this roster. Sam Steel was the WHL’s player of the year last season. Jordan Kyrou is leading the OHL in scoring with 58 points in 30 games and Boris Katchouk and Robert Thomas are top-five. Taylor Raddysh had five goals for Canada at last year’s tournament. Michael McLeod has been injured for most of the season, but the No.12 overall pick from the 2016 draft has tantalizing offensive ability.
Obviously there are players who seem like they belong, especially over a player like Formenton, but while Canada’s forwards aren’t loaded with top picks and household names, there’s a lot of talent here.
Defence
Kale Clague, Dante Fabbro, Victor Mete, Conor Timmins, Jake Bean, Cale Makar, Cal Foote.
The blueline is clearly Canada’s greatest strength. The team has three defencemen — Fabbro, Clague, and Bean — returning from last year’s silver medal team and the blueline will be augmented by Victor Mete, who’s had a successful run with the Montreal Canadiens this season, and top picks from the 2017 NHL draft Cale Makar and Cal Foote.
The strength of this blueline is speed and an ability to move the puck. None of Canada’s defencemen are your prototypical, big, hulking, physical, shutdown type player. Instead, the team features new-age defenders who can join the play and drive offence while also playing a smart and responsible positional game.
Goaltenders
Carter Hart & Colton Point.
Carter Hart will start the tournament as Canada’s No. 1 option in net. The 2016 second round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers has an incredibly impressive .961 save percentage in 17 games with the Everett Silvertips of the WHL. He split the net last year with Connor Ingram, posting a .906 save percentage in four games.
Colton Point was sort of a surprising pick for Canada. He beat out Michael DiPietro, who was excellent last year for the Memorial Cup winning Windsor Spitfires. But Point has been very good in his own right, as he has a .938 save percentage with Colgate of the NCAA.
Thoughts
At a glance, this is a certainly a Canadian team devoid of household names and elite talent.
There isn’t a Sidney Crosby, John Tavares, or Connor McDavid leading the pack. There isn’t even a Brayden Schenn or Dylan Strome type player with major pedigree. Of course, some of that has to do with Pierre-Luc Dubois, Tyson Jost, and Nolan Patrick currently playing for their respective NHL clubs, but defenceman Cale Makar is the only player on the team selected in the top-10 of the NHL draft.
Top picks from 2017 like Cody Glass (No. 6 overall), Michael Rasmussen (No. 9), and Owen Tippett (No. 10) were all left off the roster in favour of players who, according to head coach Ducharme, are stronger all-around players at this moment.
“It’s not about what they become in the NHL,” Ducharme said. “Some guys are picked early and they’ve got great potential. But where are they right now? It’s not where are they going to be in two years, three years.”
We’ve seen this before from Canada. Back in 2014, Canada added Chris Kunitz to its Olympic roster in Sochi rather than a more skilled player like Taylor Hall, and the team dominated its way to gold. In 2006, Canada had grinders like Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby on the Olympic squad in Turin, and the team lost in the quarterfinal.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Regardless, Canada still has a strong roster heading into Buffalo. It might not be as loaded with high-level talent as it could be, but this is an incredibly deep team that’s going to challenge for gold.
The team boasts a very strong and skilled blueline and a solid goalie in Carter Hart. The forwards aren’t as skilled as they could be had Canada just rolled with all their top prospects, but they certainly aren’t slouches either. There are plenty of options up front who can put the puck in the back of the net.