Glass a good bet to star for Canada at world juniors
COLWOOD, B.C. It looks like Cody Glass will get that chance to be a Rogers Arena fan favourite.
Team Canada opened its world junior camp tryout camp here on Tuesday morning at the Q Centre and Glass, the 19-year-old Portland Winterhawks pivot, certainly appears to be one of the better bets for the 23-man final roster among the 34 players invited to audition.
The Winnipeg native’s linemates for the Tuesday morning practice session included Maxime Comtois, one of two returnees from the Team Canada entry that won gold in Buffalo last January. Glass was one of the final cuts from that team, and he’s off to a banner start to the WHL campaign, with 54 points, including 12 goals, in a mere 26 games with Portland.
Those numbers become all the more impressive when you realize that Glass is a guy who takes pride in his defensive game as well.
This Team Canada begins world juniors on Boxing Day at Rogers Arena, taking on Denmark.
There were plenty of Vancouver Canucks fans pulling for Glass to make Rogers Arena a permanent base two summers ago, figuring he would be a perfect fit for their team when it picked fifth overall in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft.
Canucks brass went a different, somewhat unexpected route, taking Swedish teenager Elias Pettersson. Glass went one pick later to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Suffice to say, Canuck Nation is just fine with how things have gone with that decision so far. Glass, too, admits he’s taking some goodnatured ribbing from his buddies about Pettersson’s early success.
That’s yet another statement of how good Pettersson has been. One of the best young players in this country gets his chops busted here and there because of him.
“You try not to pay attention, but you get messaged and stuff like that,” Glass said.
“Obviously the guy is an unbelievable player. ”
Pettersson is too old for world juniors, having turned 20 on Nov. 12. Glass had visions of sticking with the Golden Knights for this season, but was reassigned to Portland in late September.
“It’s frustrating to get sent back, but they thought I did really well,” said Glass, who had 102 points, including 37 goals, in 64 regularseason games with Portland last season.