DACH READY FOR LEADERSHIP ROLE WITH CANADA'S WORLD JUNIOR TEAM
When Team Canada was handing out the C and the two A's Friday, coach Andre Tourigny let the greatest player on the planet pass along the news.
Edmonton Oilers captain Connor Mcdavid told the 19-yearold Hawks forward he would be wearing the C in the world junior tournament while centre Dylan Cozens and defenceman Bowen Byram would be alternates. The kids with the A's were on last year's gold-medal winner while Kirby Dach wasn't released by Chicago.
When Hockey Canada named its 25-player team last week, they had the kids' moms and dads on Facetime saying congratulations, with the odd exception — Dach heard it from his Hawks teammate and landlord Brent Seabrook. This time, they glitzed it up with Mcdavid, who played on the 2014 and 2015 Canadian teams.
“To have Connor do it ... he's somebody everybody looks up to,” said an appreciative Dach. “I was able to play against him a couple of times and in the playoffs against Edmonton. Yes, it was pretty special to have him do this for myself, Dylan and Bowen.”
It was a treat for Cozens and Byram, too.
“He's a pretty big figure in Canada and hockey in general and for him to reach out ... I'll remember this for awhile,” said Cozens, who'll be playing centre while Dach, mostly in the middle for the Hawks in his rookie NHL season, moves to his right-wing.
“Pretty unexpected when they put the Jumbotron on. We weren't sure what it was about and there he was ... to have a guy with his resume in the NHL and with Hockey Canada read out your name as one of the leaders,” said Byram, the first-pairing defenceman with Jamie Drysdale on this juniors squad.
On some teams, the players have a say in picking guys with letters but this was management's call. A slam-dunk with their character.
“It was kind of a three-headed monster in terms of leadership, the way they handle themselves when adversity arises,” said Tourigny. “With Kirby, it's the way he prepares, the way he carries himself in the games and in practice. He's shown a lot of maturity and leadership.”
Dach plays with Jonathan Toews every day in Chicago, so presumably some of his leadership chops have worn off.
“I've learned a lot from him, how he prepares each and every day,” said Dach. “I'm going to take that with my own leadership style and lead by example. I won't be afraid to speak up. But we have a lot of guys in our room who are leaders, apart from us three (Cozens and Byram).”
GERMANY HAS POSITIVE COVID TESTS
While the NHL had no COVID positive tests for two months in bubbles here and in Toronto for the playoffs, it's a far different story for kids at the world juniors.
The German team, opening the tournament Christmas
Day against the Finns and then Canada on Boxing Day, shockingly have eight players with COVID after tests here over the last five days when the players were in hotel quarantine. They took extra precautions at their selection camp in Fussen with no team meals before the travelling party left Germany. Even so, they lost their top winger Lukas Reichel, the Chicago 2020 first-rounder (20th overall) and forward Nino Kinder, who played for the WHL Winnipeg Ice, to COVID before the flight to Edmonton.
Their two pre-tournament tune-ups against Austria next Monday and the Czech Republic Dec. 23 are off with the team not allowed to leave their hotel rooms until Christmas Eve.
“A lot of us expected there would be news like this ... all we can do is follow the protocols in place with social distancing and hand sanitizers,” said Byram.
ANOTHER TEAM WITH VIRUS WORRIES
The Swedes, who lost four players and their head coach Thomas Monten and two other coaches at their European camp, also had two staff members test positive here. Seven players — goalie Calle Clang (Penguins third-rounder), Arvid Costmar, Theodor Niederbach (Detroit) and Emil Heineman (Florida), both second-round picks, Zion Nybeck, Oskar Olausson and Oscar Bjerselius — who already had the virus this fall, can leave quarantine. They skated Friday night, but the rest of the players can't go on the ice until Monday.
THIS ' N' THAT
Cozens got a kick out of walking into the Oilers spiffy dressing room where Team Canada will hold court for the tournament. “They've got one of the best and newest facilities in the NHL but it's a bit of a maze (of rooms) in there. It'll take awhile to find where everything is, but it's special to use their facilities,” said Cozens ... Oilers head coach Dave Tippett is in no hurry to return to Edmonton from his off-season home in Arizona because his office is inside the dressing room Team Canada's using for the world juniors. He can't get into it to do any work.