One Montreal Canadiens' prospect didn't receive an invite to Team Canada's training camp ahead of the World Junior Championship, and he's out to prove the national team staff wrong.
With Christmas right around the corner, hockey fans are getting ready for one of their favourite holiday traditions: no, it’s not unwrapping tons of presents or stuffing themselves with turkey, chocolates, and treats; it’s watching the World Junior Championships. For Montreal Canadiens fans, this should be a fun edition to watch.
Michael Hage will represent Canada; Aatos Koivu is on Finland’s preliminary roster and could play a significant role; L.J. Mooney has done everything he can to represent Uncle Sam, and he’s on their preliminary roster. Still, there’s one Habs prospect who didn’t make his country’s preliminary roster: Bryce Pickford.
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The Canadiens’ third-round pick at the last draft, a 19-year-old right-shot defenseman, has been on an absolute tear of late. In 30 games with the Medicine Hat Tigers, he has put up 42 points, including a whopping 24 goals. Projected on 68 games, the total number of games WHL teams play, that works out to 54 goals. Only nine of his lamplighters came on the power play. He currently leads the league in goals scored, two goals ahead of a couple of wingers. He has nine more goals than the second-highest-scoring defenseman, his teammate Jonas Woo.
If he were to keep up that scoring pace, it wouldn’t set a new record for a blueliner in the minor circuit. Troy Mick had three seasons of 63, 60, and 49 goals, but he’s the only rearguard in league history to score more than 49 goals in a season, and his last season was 1989-90; it’s been a while.
In his last seven games, he has tallied 12 goals and 18 points. On Saturday night, in a 10-2 trashing of the Swift Current Broncos, he scored a pair of goals. That was his fifth multi-goal game in a row. Pickford is second in the league with a plus-34 rating, three minor points behind his teammate Woo.
The youngster, who’s the Tigers’ captain, said that the World Junior Championship snub is obviously on his mind. Still, he believes that everything happens for a reason and uses the snub as motivation. Judging by how well he’s been doing so far, it wouldn’t be surprising if he pulled a Nick Suzuki and showed that his national team should have given him a call.
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