Juniors aim to step up their game
Finding ways to boost intensity level in middle of the season will be key
Dominique Ducharme can’t stress the message enough.
With Canada’s first game of the 2017 world junior championship still months away, the team’s head coach has hammered the point home during the initial days of the summer development camp: Be fully prepared for playoff-style hockey starting Dec. 26 at the Air Canada Centre when Canada competes against Russia.
The group of players that represented Canada last winter as a whole appeared to be caught by surprise by the level of competition, and when they lost against Finland in the quarter-finals by one goal, they had to endure the embarrassment of lugging a sixth-place finish across the Atlantic and dragging it around for the rest of the hockey season.
This after Canada’s emotional gold-medal win against Russia at the ACC in January 2015.
Ducharme, an assistant on the coaching staff a year ago, and nine players in this camp were part of the outfit that struggled through the preliminary round before losing to the Finns.
“The key word is short,” Ducharme said of the compact nature of the tournament. “Most of our guys are going to be playing in the Canadian Hockey League in December and that’s far from the playoffs.
“When they get there, they will need to step up their game and go to (something similar to) an American Hockey League playoff game, within two weeks. There is no buildup to it. It’s a short turnaround and having the guys raise their game, the attention to details, the little things that make you win close games is crucial to me.”
It’s not only turning up the dial on intensity, and then hoping that positive results come from it, that’s important. The Canadians a year ago had little on-ice chemistry, and Ducharme knows it’s something that has to start developing this week in exhibition games in Plymouth, Mich., versus Finland, Sweden and the United States.
It’s a tricky situation, because there exists the likelihood a player or two, whether it’s Mitch Marner, Dylan Strome, Lawson Crouse or someone else, will be in the NHL and not part of the program for Hockey Canada in December. Overcoming that challenge is something each Canadian coaching staff must do every year.
The NHL factor aside, those who will return from last winter — the eligibles include defenceman Thomas Chabot and forwards Mathew Barzal, Anthony Beauvillier, Crouse, Julien Gauthier, Travis Konecny, Marner, Mitchell Stephens and Strome — know that, collectively, they have to take the lessons learned and apply them in Toronto and then in the medal round in Montreal.
And at the same time, spread the word to those who will be world junior rookies.
“It’s a fast transition,” Konecny said.
“I don’t know if that was part of the (problem) last year, giving a bunch of young guys an opportunity.
“Now, we are coming in with a lot of guys who have been through the process and who can lead and be mature about everything.
“Hopefully, we can get everyone to come together as quick as possible and we won’t have to deal with any of those problems.”