Next weeks' Young Stars Tournament in Penticton will serve different purposes for different players. Some—including Connor McDavid of Edmonton—will be getting their first taste of NHL-level action, while others will be showing the coaches what they can do before being shipped off to the AHL.
When talking about potential future Canucks, it's interesting to note some of the names that are *not* on the Young Stars roster this year.
As we've discussed previously, college players Thatcher Demko and Brock Boeser have already started their school years. Their hockey seasons won't begin until October, but NCAA rules prohibit them from taking part in the tournament.
In addition, according to
this post from 2014 from Larry Fisher at The Hockey Writers, players must have less than 100 regular-season games of professional hockey experience to qualify as Young Stars.
That's why the Canucks roster—
click here to see—includes players as old as 24-year-old goaltender Clay Witt, who played just four pro games in the ECHL last season after graduating from college.
One player who won't be participating is 2011 first-rounder Nicklas Jensen, who's now 22 but has been playing at the pro level since the tail-end of the 2011-12 season, when he played six regular-season and two playoff games with the Chicago Wolves.
Jensen did participate in his third Young Stars tournament in 2014 with 99 pro games under his belt, including 19 with the Canucks. The same was true for Frank Corrado—also 22 and drafted in 2011—who had 84 games of regular-season pro experience going into the 2014 tournament before logging another full pro season in 2014-15. He won't be in the mix in Penticton this year.
Another player in this category: winger Ludwig Blomstrand. Though he has only recently popped up on the radar of Canucks fans, he's also now 22, drafted in 2011, and has played 114 North American pro games dating back to a brief stint with the Chicago Wolves in 2012-13. Blomstrand has spent the better part of the last two seasons with Kalamazoo of the ECHL, so those games count towards his pro experience. Blomstrand played at Young Stars back in 2013.
Alex Grenier also made his last Young Stars appearance in 2013. Now 24, he had accumulated 129 games of pro experience between the ECHL and the AHL before the 2014 event.
You may remember that walk-on Curtis Valk was one of the stars of last year's tournament for Vancouver, and parlayed the experience into a one-year ECHL contract with the Kalamazoo Wings.
Valk started off well for the Wings, with 30 points in 31 games, before suffering a season-ending knee injury on January 25 that required surgery, according to Josh W at
Canucks Army. The last updates I can find on his condition indicate that he was recalled to Utica for the spring playoff run but it was essentially a paper transaction—he was still injured at that time.
Players to Watch
As far as the players who will be participating in the tournament, Jake Virtanen and Jared McCann will get the lion's share of the attention next week as they try to forge a path straight to the NHL rather than being sent back to junior for one last season.
Beyond those two top prospects, these are the Canucks players I think will be most interesting to watch in Penticton.
Brendan Gaunce: A bit of a forgotten man for much of last season in Utica, Brendan Gaunce surged towards the end of the year and was a valuable contributor for Utica in the playoffs. Now 21, Gaunce is among the older high-end prospects who will be playing in Penticton. He could do a lot for his reputation if he's able to dominate against younger opposition.
Hunter Shinkaruk: Like Gaunce, Shinkaruk played his first year of pro hockey in Utica last season, but showed he still had some learning to do. Missing a good part of his last year in junior due to shoulder surgery probably didn't help his development. We'll be hoping to see a savvier Shinkaruk on the ice this year at the South Okanagan Events Centre.
A good Young Stars tournament and training camp for Shinkaruk would go a long way towards getting him on the list of Vancouver's possible call-ups for next season.
Ben Hutton: A 23-year-old offensive defenseman who's coming out of college hockey, Hutton's pencilled in for Utica. With the Canucks' current lack of depth on the blue line, there might be room for him to move up at some point next season if he can impress while he has the attention of the big brass.
Clay Witt: Also a recent college graduate, goaltender Witt is the old man among the Young Stars at 24. Brought in to shore up the goaltending depth in Utica after the Canucks missed out on signing star prospect Matt O'Connor earlier this summer, Witt will have a chance to compete with Richard Bachman and Joe Cannata for a job on the Comets.
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