Team Canada's official roster was unveiled this week for the 2024 World Juniors, with two AHL alum and highly touted prospects cracking the list
That warm and fuzzy holiday season feeling is here. For many, especially Canadians, holidays mean World Juniors.
It is tradition, baked into the season like Santa and his Elves, that Boxing Day is the official start of the annual tournament that features the absolute best young hockey players in the world.
The stars of tomorrow from across the globe vye for pride, national honor, and the chance for a once-in-a-lifetime skills showcase for the world to see.
Many would-be NHLers have made their names off the back of a lights-out World Junior. run. These are names that have littered the top ten list of NHL statistics for decades and are far too numerous to list. Simply put, the World Juniors is a must-see.
Team Canada recently unveiled their final roster selection for the upcoming tournament in Sweden, with two American Hockey League standouts making the final cut.
Matthew Savoie, the ninth overall pick by the Buffalo Sabres in 2022, and 53rd overall selection that same year by the Anaheim Ducks Tristan Luneau, have both made the 23-man roster for the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship.
Savoie, 19, is an undersized but highly skilled prospect. Putting up 95 points, including 38 goals in just 62 games with the Winnipeg Ice of the WHL in 2022-23, Savoie is earmarked for a future top-six role in Buffalo for his natural goal-scoring ability and dueling status as a premiere setup man.
He's been busy in 2023-24, bouncing between the WHL's Wenatchee Wild, where he has 11 goals and 24 points in just 11 games, the AHL's Rochester Americans (two goals and five points in six games), as well as logging just under four minutes of ice-time in his NHL debut for the Sabres against the Wild on November 10th.
Savoie is expected to finish the year in the WHL before jumping head-on into the pro level for 2024-25.
Tristan Luneau is a different beast entirely.
The 19-year-old Victoriaville native is a highly-skilled, point-producing defenseman with speed who's not afraid to wade into the physical areas of the game.
In the QMJHL Luneau put up 20 goals and 83 points with an outstanding plus-49 in 65 games with Gatineau. The right-shot blueliner has already received a look with the overflowing prospect pool of the Ducks, netting a goal and three points through seven games in Anaheim.
Luneau has suited up for six games with the newly resurgent San Diego Gulls in the AHL, putting up two assists in that span.
For more on the complete Team Canada roster click here.