The only thing certain for Team Canada is continuing NHL 'uncertainty'

HAMILTON, Ont. — It seems like every year Hockey Canada is at the mercy of NHL clubs to help bolster their roster for the world junior hockey championship. This time around, however, they’re going to need all the help they can get if they hope to strike gold like they did in January 2015 in Toronto.

On Monday night, the search to find the top players across the country continued with Game 4 of the Canada-Russia Series. Team OHL skated away with a 5-2 win in the second leg of their series with the Russians.

These are important games, but still only one small piece of the larger selection puzzle.

“I try not to put a judgement only on one game,” said Team Canada head coach Dominique Ducharme. “You can have a great game or a … bad night – it happens to everyone. We get regular scouting reports and reports on guys everywhere in the country, so we kind of have an idea of how everyone is doing.

“It is important because it’s another level. It’s not a (regular) CHL game, it’s higher than that. It’s closer to what’s going to be played at the world juniors, so it’s good to see how they react. But it’s not everything.”

After a dismal showing last year in Finland where a young Team Canada finished sixth, the silver lining was the number of potential returnees – as many as nine. But as we’ve seen time and time again, predicting the NHL fortunes of teenagers is a mug’s game.

“I think you’d always like to have an older team when you go to this thing and we had that two years ago in Toronto-Montreal when we had a lot of 19-year-olds,” said Hockey Canada director of player personnel Ryan Jankowski. “I think that still is important and yet in the end you still want to take the best players.”

As the NHL season has progressed, Arizona’s Dylan Strome and New York Islanders forward Anthony Beauvillier would seem Canada’s best bets to be returned from their NHL clubs.

There’s still a slim possibility that Strome’s Coyotes teammate Lawson Crouse could return, but since he’s averaging more than 12 minutes a night in Arizona as a rookie, it’s looking doubtful. There’s even less chance that Arizona would loan defenceman Jakob Chychrun, who’s playing in their top six, which is too bad, because Canada’s going to need all the help they can get on the blue line.

“I’d like to think there’s a chance at some guys (returning) and yet there’s nothing formal at this point,” said Jankowski. “The conversations are ongoing.”

As it is, only four players from last year’s world junior team – defenceman Thomas Chabot and forwards Mathew Barzal, Mitchell Stephens, and Julien Gauthier are back in junior. Barzal was only recently sent back to the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds by the New York Islanders.

The uncertainty of whether NHL teams will loan players to Team Canada for the holiday-season tournament makes the selection process “a lot more difficult,” said Jankowski. “When you add in the injuries that some of the players have had this year, it’s made it very challenging. And yet we’ve got enough depth in the country that we like the players that we’ve been seeing.”

One of the big names among the injured is Brandon Wheat Kings centre, Nolan Patrick, 18, an early contender for first-overall pick in the 2017 NHL entry draft. The Wheat Kings captain played six games this season before being sidelined by an undisclosed “upper body” injury. There’s no timetable for Patrick’s return, which Jankowski said is being evaluated on a “week-to-week” basis.

There’s also Soo Greyhounds captain and New Jersey Devils prospect Blake Speers who underwent surgery earlier this month to repair a broken bone in his wrist. Given the prognosis, he could return just before Canada opens selection camp on Dec. 11 in Blainville, Que.

“That’s a tricky injury with the scaphoid (bone) and the fact that he had surgery,” said Jankowski.

Canada opens the 2017 tournament on Dec. 26 against Russia at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre.