WJC: the United States have given themselves the tools to perform well in the tournament

The World Junior Championship will take place next week. In fact, in a week to the day, the games will start live from Alberta in order to restart the tournament, which was not completed last winter.

Canada unveiled its roster last night and the CH will have two hopefuls (Joshua Roy and Riley Kidney) in its roster. Kaiden Guhle, who had admitted not being sure if he was going to be present, will not be there in the end.

But at least, the CH will have several hopes to watch among the different delegations: Roy, Kidney, Jan Mysak (Czechia), Oliver Kapanen and Petteri Nurmi (Finland) will be in the tournament to represent their country in the coming weeks.

We can believe that this is an instruction from the Canadiens for the first-round picks who will make the leap to the pros in Quebec. After all, besides Guhle, Juraj Slafkovsky and Filip Mesar (who might well play for Laval next year) won’t be representing their country either – Slovakia.

Note that the other first-round choice of CH who is old enough to go there, Logan Mailloux, has played little in recent years for the reasons that we know and he is recovering from an operation. He was certainly not going to go there at the base, but anyway, he will return to the OHL next year.

For Canada, this is bad news since Guhle was the captain last winter. That said, he is not the only guy who has chosen – or who has been forced to – rest this summer since no less than nine guys will rest and have given up their place.

Shane Wright, Xavier Bourgault and Mavrik Bourque are other notable absentees.

Nine guys out of 25, it’s more than 1/3 of the regulars who will be absent. Whatever the reason (rest, injury, dissociating from Hockey Canada), it’s not going to help the club in its quest for a gold medal. After all, this winter, Canada already lacked experience…

The good news is that three new Quebecers will still have their chance because of the absences at Hockey Canada. These are new faces that place their feet.

We are talking about Joshua Roy, of course, but also about Nathan Gaucher and William Dufour.

Obviously, when you look at that, it’s a great formation for Canada. But the question we have to ask ourselves is whether we are equipped to beat the Americans in the coming weeks.

After all, that is what is at stake.

And the Americans, them, will have a fairly similar training to that of this winter – except among the guards. There will be a few absentees, but the defense will notably be quite similar to that of seven months ago. Only Jake Sanderson and Scott Moreau (reservist) will not return.

And on the attack, even if a few pieces will be absent (Tanner Dickerson, Matty Beniers, Chaz Lucius and reservist Ty Smilanic, who now belongs to CH), the fact remains that this time, Thomas Bordeleau will be able to wear the colors of the United States. That’s a BIG boost.

With a more inexperienced Canada, Russia missing from the tournament, and big chunks of Europe missing, is the United States in a good position to win gold?

Possibly, yes.

A lot of

– As if we needed one more reason to find him inspiring.

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– Yes.

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