Coming off Canada’s worst consecutive showings at the world junior championship since way back in 1979 and ’80 when the country sent club teams to the tournament, Hockey Canada decided to make major changes to its pre-tournament plans this year.
Preparation — not evaluation — will be the main buzzword in the days before the annual event.
Gone is the 30-plus-player, four-day selection camp. In its place is an 11-day training camp in Niagara Falls, Ont., Dec. 12-22, that likely will feature no more than 26 players.
Canada can take a maximum of 25 players to the world juniors when the tournament starts Dec. 26 in Minnesota.
“We just felt collectively we could build out the roster without a selection camp, without putting such an emphasis on three days and two (games against) U Sports (teams),” Alan Millar, the first-year general manager of Hockey Canada’s Program of Excellence (the junior program down through the U17 level), said in a recent telephone interview.
“Ultimately we just felt it was in our best interest to prioritize preparation over those final few evaluations. … So that’s what we’ve done. We have a real detailed plan around 10 days in Niagara Falls, and two pre-competition games in Kitchener and London (against Sweden).”
After Canada’s second straight quarterfinal exit at the world juniors last season, Hockey Canada took a hard look at the program.
One of the first moves was to bring on a new full-time hire as a GM for the Program of Excellence, bringing back Millar after the veteran junior hockey executive spent three seasons with Hockey Canada as director of player personnel from 2021-23.
Millar, in turn, has full use of scout Byron Bonora. He also hired London Knights general manager Mark Hunter to work on this year’s management team, along with his brother and London coach Dale Hunter to run the coaching staff. Dale Hunter, one of the most successful coaches in junior hockey history, won gold with Canada at the world juniors in 2020.
The management and coaching staff will primarily be working on developing chemistry in roles and chemistry at camp instead of picking players. But there is one hitch.
Nine Canadian junior-age players remain in the NHL, a very high number. While San Jose Sharks star Macklin Celebrini clearly is not coming back — he is an Olympic candidate — and New York Islanders rookie standout defenceman Matthew Schaefer is all but out of the world-junior picture, it’s wait and see for the seven others.
Seattle Kraken forward Berkly Catton, San Jose Sharks forward Michael Misa, Sharks defenceman Sam Dickinson, Calgary Flames defenceman Zayne Parekh, Pittsburgh Penguins forward Ben Kindel, Penguins defenceman Harrison Brunicke and Anaheim Ducks forward Beckett Sennecke are the seven NHL possibilities. Parekh and Misa are currently injured, so that’s another factor.
“In our discussions with NHL teams, our preference is to have the players in camp (Dec. 12 to start),” Millar said. “When I talk about what we’re doing with our camp and the value we’re putting on preparation and the work and the detail Dale Hunter and his staff are doing to get ready for the tourney in terms of how they want to play, we would like everybody there on the 12th.
“Is there some flexibility? Let’s be honest, let’s be real here. If there is some flexibility around some time for a player to be assigned from the NHL and we think that makes our team better, we’ll certainly have those discussions and consider it.”
In a perfect world — and we all know it’s not that — Millar and his group will name a 24-player team in the days leading up to camp. The 25th player — the third goalie — will stay with his club team, and be available to fly in to the tournament if there is an injury.
“Let’s face it, we’re dealing with an abnormal number of players still in the NHL that are eligible to play for the national junior team,” Millar said. “We need to see how that plays out and give ourselves some flexibility on the final roster.
“There may be a situation — let’s look at the situation on D, four in the NHL essentially could be our top four D. We may need to get nine defencemen in front of our coaching staff for 10 days and let them see who best fits as a group of eight. We want to give ourselves the best opportunity to be prepared for the tournament while at the same time just giving ourselves a little flexibility.”
In the meantime, Millar will spend much of his next month on the road — which features more scouting in the U.S. than previous years because of the NCAA rule change allowing ex-CHL players to play U.S. college hockey.
Penn State forward Gavin McKenna and Michigan State forward Porter Martone played on last year’s team and are all but sure things to return as two of nine potential returnees. But other NCAAers need to be evaluated to determine how they fit in the mix.
“The landscape has changed,” Millar said. “Traditionally over the year, we might be looking at one or two in the NCAA, I was at two weekend games about a month ago where there were six players in games that are on our depth chart for the national junior team.”
Millar will spend most of the next month on the road before going to London for final discussions with Dale and Mark Hunter in the last few days before camp.
While Millar wasn’t involved in the past two world-junior efforts, he’s well aware of the recent history.
“I don’t know if we feel any greater pressure than you normally would managing, coaching or playing for the national junior team, but at the same time as a group we’re certainly cognizant of the results the last couple years,” he said. “(Senior vice-president of high performance and hockey operations) Scott Salmond and (president/CEO) Katherine Henderson went through a review that created this new structure to get us back on track.
“And that’s our plan. Our plan is to get back on track and be as best prepared as we can for Boxing Day when the tournament starts, make sure our team gets better as we go along and peak at the right time and to bring a gold medal and world junior championship back to Canada.”
from Sportsnet.ca
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