Junior team gets shot of pro
Players have 190 games combined in American league
Canada’s junior men’s hockey team selection camp roster reflects an unusual consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic: The lack of a 2020-21 Ontario Hockey League season injected a strong pro component into the Canadian team.
Nine of the 35 invited players have a combined 190 games of American Hockey League experience, driven largely by OHL players’ need to find a place to play last season. Defencemen Ryan O’Rourke and Donovan Sebrango and forward Tyson Foerster, who were on last year’s selection camp roster and released, have played 114 AHL games between them. The Canadian Hockey League and NHL allowed allow teenagers such as Manitoba Moose forward Cole Perfetti, who played more than 30 AHL games last season, to return to that league instead of their junior clubs.
“That’s really nothing we’ve ever dealt with not only from an evaluation perspective, but also as we get into our preparation where we’ve had exemptions for CHL players to play in the American Hockey League,” Hockey Canada director of player personnel Alan Millar told The Canadian Press. “You look at both Cole Perfetti and a Donovan Sebrango, they’re not part-time players in the American Hockey League. They’re both averaging significant minutes (and playing) significant roles. I think those guys are going to bring a leadership, a determination in their game, a compete in their game because they’re playing with men.”
Hockey Canada will unveil its 25player roster for the 2022 world junior men’s hockey championship in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alta., following selection camp Dec. 9-12 in Calgary.
The goaltenders have already been chosen. Brett Brochu of the London Knights, Dylan Garand of the Kamloops Blazers and six-footseven Sebastian Cossa of the Edmonton Oil Kings will represent Canada, which opens the tournament Dec. 26 against the Czech Republic at Edmonton’s Rogers Place.
“Cossa, Garand and Brochu certainly separated themselves,” Millar said. “To add a fourth potentially complicates things at camp. We felt it was best to move from the evaluation phase to the preparation phase with this group, turn over Sebastian, Dylan and Brett to our goaltending coach, Olivier Michaud, let him start working with them Dec. 9 and they’ve got all that preparation, team-building time to get ready for Boxing Day and beyond.”