Chemistry is crucial for Canada’s juniors
With a roster short on superstars, team play will be the only way to win
Dominique Ducharme had a fairly simple goal in mind when he woke up on Sunday morning.
The 43-year-old head coach of Canada’s junior team would soon depart the team hotel with Hockey Canada staff and two busloads of prospective players for the 2017 world junior championship.
Once the club arrived at Boisbriand’s Centre d’Excellence Sports Rousseau to begin the selection camp with two practices that day, Ducharme knew it would be crucial for a team to begin to take shape, whether all the players would be part of the final roster or not.
That never really happened last winter, and Canada, with Ducharme on the coaching staff as an assistant coach, was sixth in Helsinki. That was then. “I like the feeling in the lockerroom,” Ducharme said before Canada met the Czech Republic for an exhibition game on Wednesday.
“I like the way our guys are jelling, that’s one thing, but also the way they want to move forward, the way they want to improve, the way they want to get into it right away. I like the mindset of our guys.”
This team won’t be laden with superstars. It’s going to be deep, sure, but it’s going to take all 22 players pulling one way to win Canada’s second gold medal of this decade.
One change is that players who have been returned to junior from the NHL this season haven’t arrived at camp wishing they were somewhere else. Dylan Strome and Thomas Chabot have stepped up in that regard. Both are holdovers from last winter’s team and know what didn’t work.
“I’m trying to get to know everyone,” said Strome, an Arizona Coyotes prospect. “I think that is a huge thing for this tournament — that guys become lifelong teammates. I know when Connor (McDavid) played, he met some guys and he is still friends with them to this day.”
As the lone returning blue-liner, Chabot, a first-round pick by the Ottawa Senators in 2015, doesn’t need to be told the responsibility he carries.
“For sure,” Chabot said. “I’m the only defenceman coming back, so there is a little more pressure on my shoulders. But I see it as a good challenge and I think I’m ready for it.”