Team Canada WJC roster announced with plenty of changes over the original lineup
After the pandemic shut down the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championships just as they were getting started, the tournament was rescheduled to start August 9th, 2022. It's kind of perfect timing - after all, the hockey world is starved for, well, some hockey! Thanks to that lovely pandemic, we now have one of the most exciting hockey tournaments in the world taking place in the middle of dead season. I suppose that's what we call a silver-lining.
For any readers who don't live in Canada, the World Juniors is arguably the biggest tournament of the year for Canadian hockey fans. Today, Hockey Canada released the updated roster for the rescheduled tournament.
This roster is notably different from the one that we saw in January. Shane Wright, Owen Power, Cole Perfetti, Xavier Bourgault, Mavrik Bourque, Dylan Guenther, Jake Neighbors, and Justin Sourdif have all had to be replaced for various reasons.
While the tournament kicks off Tuesday August 9th, Team Canada fans will have to wait until the 10th to see the Canadian kids play their first game. The loss of Power, Wright and Perfetti will no doubt be tough for Team Canada, but they'll have 17 year old phenom Connor Bedard and budding NHL star Mason McTavish to lead the way. Leafs fans will have to wait until January to likely see one of their prospects (Fraser Minten) wearing the red and white, but can watch Matthew Knies with Team USA and Topi NIemela and Roni Hirvonen on Team Finland next week. Goaltending prospects Artur Ahktyamov and Vyacheslav Peska will not have the chance to play due to Russia being banned from the tournament.
