One always feels a little for the Team Canada goalies at World Junior Championship time. It has always seemed absurd that, for three weeks, an 18- or 19-year-old gets judged by an NHL standard where analysts point out that his game, which is good enough for an average in the low 2.00s in major junior, actually has more holes than the plot of X-Men: Apocalypse.
That’s not to say that the wall-to-wall coverage and the microanalysis is a contributing factor to how Canada’s goalies have performed at the WJC in recent years, of course. Either way, the likely top two for Canada at the end of the this month, the Everett Silvertips’ Carter Hart and Kamloops Blazers’ Connor Ingram, are about to have the amount of scrutiny on their play increase 20-fold.
Hart, a Philadelphia Flyers second-rounder, is leading the WHL in average (1.65) and save percentage (.937). That is due to a Silvertips-record 193-minute 48-second shutout streak that included three consecutive shutouts, which means that he is locked in as the days draw down before Team Canada’s selection camp in Montreal.
Why Canada’s World Junior Championship goalies are better this year. (Marissa Baecker/Getty)
The general survey questions about the 6-foot-2 Sherwood Park, Alta., native probably involve whether Hart is ready for the WJC at 18 years old, along with how his play in a defensive system in Everett transfers to a short-run, best-on-best tournament. Still, Hart hasn’t had back-to-back off games this season; he’s never allowed more than five goals in any two-game span with the ‘Tips, whose No. 1 defenceman Noah Juulsen is also headed to Canada’s selection camp.
Ingram (Tampa Bay Lightning) and the Owen Sound Attack’s Michael McNiven (Montreal Canadiens) are capable 19-year-olds who have thrived at helping their teams punch above their weights on many nights.
Team Canada hasn’t collected the WJC’s top goalie award since Steve Mason in 2008, so it’s been a while since a Canadian was the best between the pipes at the event that’s the pinnacle of under-20 hockey. Coincidentally, this season also marks a full cycle since the CHL removed goalies from the import draft to increase opportunities for North American netminders. It’s now fair to wonder if that will have an impact at the world junior level.
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Otters run a sweater relay
Something always gets forgotten when packing. The Erie Otters’ top two scorers, Alex DeBrincat and Taylor Raddysh, along with forwards Erik Cernak and Ivan Lodnia, played in numbar-less spare sweaters last Friday after their “gamers” were left at home. Erie wound up losing 3-1 to the eighth-place Guelph Storm.
PSA: If you’re watching tonight’s game, don’t be alarmed by the jersey numbers. A few player jerseys didn’t make the trip so team improvised
— Aaron Cooney (@Aaron_Cooney) December 3, 2016
That said, here are the changes:
Darren Raddysh = 3
Alex DeBrincat = 5
Erik Cernak = 11
Ivan Lodnia = 46— Aaron Cooney (@Aaron_Cooney) December 3, 2016
Otters had a speedy delivery courtesy of the Edwardson family, everyone is back into their correct jersey/number.
— Aaron Cooney (@Aaron_Cooney) December 3, 2016
The Otters ran a relay to get the players their sweaters for Saturday’s game in Owen Sound—their longest road trip within the Midwest Division. A team employee handed off the sweaters to GM Dave Brown in Buffalo. Brown made the border crossing and delivered the jerseys to Don Edwardson, rookie centre Carson Edwardson’s father.
All four players got their rightful digits about 90 minutes before puck drop. Coincidentally—or perhaps not—the Otters won both games against the Attack. DeBrincat and Lodnia each scored twice in the second game.
Pats get new lease on life
The Regina Pats’ bid for the 2018 MasterCard Memorial Cup will go ahead, after the WHL team signed a lease on Evraz Place late Friday.
One can only presume there is a great deal of relief that a deal was made, since the alternative would have been having only two teams (the OHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs and Oshawa Generals) left bidding for what’s purportedly a special 100th edition of the championship. The Western League, not surprisingly, was flexible about its original deadline, buying time for Pats co-owner Anthony Marquart and officials in the Saskatchewan capital.
The Pats are in a go-for-it season. With Sam Steel among their six 18-year-old regulars and promising 17-year-olds such as Nick Henry and Jake Leschyshyn, there are the makings of a credible host entry.
Day gives the Joe a fitting send-off
Some Sean Day flair made the final OHL game at Joe Louis Arena memorable on Sunday. The New York Rangers-drafted defenceman scored a natural hat trick within the last five minutes of regulation and the first 90 seconds of overtime to lift the Windsor Spitfires to a 3-2 win against the Saginaw Spirit.
Ironically, a gaffe by a Red Wings prospect gave Windsor an opening. Saginaw’s Filip Hronek was penalized for closing his hand on the puck during a desperate short-handed clearing attempt. Day scored twice in 21 seconds, then glided into the Saginaw zone as softly as a cloud for the winner. It was Day’s first hat trick, in his 200th OHL game.
The Detroit Compuware Ambassadors/Jr. Red Wings franchise (now the Flint Firebirds) played at the JLA from 1991-95. Windsor and Saginaw arranged the special game in order to acknowledge the fabled building’s place in OHL history.
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Canadian NHL team prospect of the week
Rodrigo Abols, C, Acadie-Bathurst Titan (QMJHL)
It’s been a long journey from the Portland Winterhawks to the east coast, but the Latvian centre is on a hot streak. Abols has come to life with 10 points over his past four games for the Titan, including three multi-point efforts.
Abols’s coming-out happened last season at Vancouver Canucks rookie camp, where he thrived in the Young Stars tournament while playing with top prospects. The NHL CBA proscribed signing a 19-year-old free agent and Abols had an up-and-down 20-goal, 49-point season with the Winterhawks, which led to him being available to the Canucks as the No.-184 overall choice. As an overager, Abols was squeezed out in Portland, but the 6-foot-5, 192-lb. forward has size and skill and seems to have adjusted to a new league.
New name to know
Damien Giroux, C, Saginaw Spirit (OHL)
The 16-year-old centre has found a place on the top three lines for the Spirit, with nine points (5G-4A) across 18 points. What makes the 5-foot-9, 170-pounder even more compelling to follow isn’t that he’s playing regularly only months after being a third-round choice in the OHL priority selection, but that the Hanmer, Ont., native had a major health scare two years ago. In early 2015, Giroux suffered a perforated duodenal ulcer that required emergency surgery. In classic hockey player form, he was back on skates only two weeks later.
Since the world under-17 challenge, Giroux has points in five of nine games.
