The Vancouver Canucks’ prospects at the World Juniors have played two games a piece. Let’s check in on their progress during the group stage of the tournament.
The World Junior Championships are my favourite part of the hockey season. It’s no secret that I get excited by the future players that will make their way to NHL rosters in due time. This tournament is more special when the Vancouver Canucks get to showcase some of their prized prospects.
During Jim Benning’s tenure, Canucks fans have had few opportunities to see many of their prospects on this international stage. Some years, like last year, we have a prospect that is injured like Brock Boeser.
Other years, our prized prospects are overshadowed by the overwhelming might of the upcoming draft hopefuls. This was evident during the 2016 World Juniors when Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine and Matthew Tkachuk were stealing the spotlight. Finland was a tour de force during that tournament and ran a reign of terror throughout.
Canucks fans haven’t had this much excitement at this tournament since Cody Hodgson and Jordan Schroeder. Hard to believe it’s been nearly nine years since those days. Fast forward to now and the Canucks potentially had six players at this tournament.
However, once the rosters were finalized, four Canucks prospects made the cut. This included Olli Juolevi and Will Lockwood from the 2016 draft, in addition to Elias Petterson and Jonah Gadjovich from last year’s draft.
The quartet are through two games during the preliminary group stage and we felt now would be a good time to cover their progress before the much anticipated outdoor game between Canada and the United States.