Summer Preview-Team Canada WJC team

With World Junior summer camps opening soon I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at who Canada brought to this camp, as well as make some predictions about what the team may look like come December. This is my personal projection; I have selected it as if I was the guy in charge running the show. This is not a projection of what the actual team will be. For the full list of players invited to the summer camp check out Hockey Canada’s website. 

Goalies

Eric Comrie, Tristan Jarry

Canada brought four goalies to camp; Eric Comrie of the Tri-City Americans, Philippe Desrosiers of the Rimouski Oceanic, Zachary Fucale of the Halifax Mooseheads and Tristan Jarry of the Edmonton Oil Kings. I would have Eric Comrie as the starting goalie as he has shown a good ability in the WHL to be an elite puck stopper. He was second in the WHL this past season with a 0.925 sv%. The back-up for my team would be Tristan Jarry. Jarry makes the team because of back-to-back excellent seasons with the Oil Kings. In 2012 Jarry lead the WHL in sv% with a 0.936 mark, granted that was just 27 games. This season getting a full load playing 63 games, he put up a 0.914 mark which was good for 9^th in the WHL.

Defence

Darnell Nurse – Aaron Ekblad

Josh Morrissey – Madison Bowey

Shea Theodore – Haydn Fleury  

Roland McKeown

Ekblad and Nurse both very well may be in the NHL next season, which would take a big bite out of the D core. Hopefully at least one of them is released and able to play in the tournament. The Morrisey -Bowey pair combined for 133 points in 131 games last season. They give Team Canada two puck moving defencemen who can put up points. The Theodore-Fleury pair is the classic pair an offensive player with a defensive player. Theodore was second in the CHL in points by a defencemen with 79 in 70 games. Fleury has the reputation of being a very good defensive player, but also has shown a decent ability to score putting up 46 points in 70 games last season. McKeown is the choice as the 7^th defencemen as he like the other players has shown some offensive ability putting up 43 points in 62 games. He also can handle his own defensively as he took on the toughest competition for the Frontenacs last season.

Forwards*

Michael Dal Cole – Conner McDavid – Sam Rienhart

Morgan Klimchuk – Nic Petan – Sam Bennett

Robbie Fabbri – Braydon Point – Anthony Duclair

Bo Horvat – Curtis Lazar – Nick Ritchie

Brenden Perlinni, Jayce Hawryluk

*I ignored Jonathan Drouin and Max Domi for this as I think both are locks for the NHL next season. If they are able to play in the tournament they would slot in on the top line with Mcdavid.  

I clearly went for speed and skill with this forward group. After last year’s tournament when Brent Sutter went off about a lack of skill, I wanted to ensure this team had plenty of it. Every one of these players has put up at least a point per game at one time in their CHL careers. This team would be scary for opposing coaches to match up against as all four lines would be capable of scoring at any point. I would be quite comfortable using the Lazar-Horvat-Ritchie line as the shutdown line, putting them up against the other team’s best. They would handle the defensive zone starts, allowing the coach to shelter the Point-Fabbri-Duclair line. This group would have no issues scoring as even if one line was struggling, you simply go to another skill line and hope they can do the job.

People will look at this team and wonder where the grit and size is. I think last year’s team showed that players like Frederik Gauthier and Josh Anderson are not needed for this tournament. They had to be sheltered and at times didn’t even see the ice putting a bigger burden on the rest of the team. This team would have no such issues as all players could handle all situations and thrive. Obviously things can change guys can get hurt/regress, others can step up, but as it currently stands I think this team would give Canada one the best chances it has had in a while to end its gold medal drought. 

Stats from extraskater.com and whl.ca