Looks like Santa dropped off some sunshine for us here in Vancouver today. That's a nice surprise.
I hope you're having a great day with the ones you love. Thanks so much for all the good wishes over the past few days—I can't tell you how much they're appreciated.
Since World Juniors kicks off early tomorrow morning, I figured it's worthwhile to do a quick rundown of what to watch from a Canucks perspective.
If you missed it—Vancouver fans now have just two prospects to follow: Brock Boeser of Team USA and Jake Virtanen on Team Canada.
Winger Lukas Jasek was a late cut from the Czech team on Thursday. The Canucks' sixth-rounder from 2015 would have been one of the younger players in the mix—he just turned 18 in August.
Interesting to hear that while Boeser and his UND teammate Nick Schmaltz are currently slotted in as the third line, there's talk that their role could change—they might end up being used more as second-liners. Schmaltz is in his second year at North Dakota: he was chosen 20th overall by Chicago in 2014.
If you haven't had a chance yet to check out Boeser's highlight package from his first season at North Dakota so far, take a look:
Like many young players, there's talk that he still needs to work on the defensive side of his game. It'll be interesting to see how he looks against Team Canada tomorrow.
Team USA head coach Ron Wilson is going even younger on his top line. Auston Matthews, Alexander DeBrincat and Matthew "son of Keith" Tkachuk are all barely 18 and will be draft-eligible in June.
Team Canada has just one draft-eligible player—power forward Julien Gauthier of the QMJHL.
Click here for Team Canada's Christmas Day practice lines, from Mark Masters of TSN. After his player-of-the-game performance in the last tuneup game against Sweden, Jake Virtanen is slotted into the right side of the top line with another returnee from last year's gold-medal-winning team, Brayden Point, as well as fellow 2014 first-rounder Brendan Perlini.
Both coaches in tomorrow's game also carry a Canucks connection. Ron Wilson was an assistant coach in Vancouver for three seasons from 1990 to 1993 before he became the first-ever head coach of the expansion Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Team Canada's head coach, Dave Lowry, was drafted by the Canucks in the sixth round in 1983. He played the first 165 games of his thousand-plus game NHL career in Vancouver before being traded to St. Louis in 1988 for a player named Ernie Vargas, who never played an NHL game.
Pat Quinn notoriously got the better of Blues general manager Ron Caron when he acquired Geoff Courtnall, Cliff Ronning, Sergio Momesso and Robert Dirk in a 1991 trade-deadline deal, but the Lowry trade definitely favoured St. Louis, who kept him for five seasons during the peak Brett Hull years before losing him to the Florida Panthers in the 1994 expansion draft.
If you're suffering from hockey withdrawal today, you can re-watch the 2015 semifinal and the gold-medal game this afternoon on TSN.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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