Last week was a big news week for the Vancouver Canucks, with the announcement of the hiring of new head coach Travis Green on Wednesday, then the confirmation that the Canucks will get the fifth overall pick in this year's NHL draft.
If you feel disappointed about where the Canucks ended up, spare a thought for the poor Colorado Avalanche fans.
The Avs did pick first overall in 2013, when they chose Nathan MacKinnon. Of course, back when they were the Quebec Nordiques, Eric Lindros was chosen first overall in 1991 but forced a trade after refusing to play for the team. Lindros was the Nords' third-straight No. 1 pick, following Mats Sundin in 1989 and Owen Nolan in 1990.
Nathan MacKinnon and several of his Colorado teammates are suiting up for Team Canada at this year's World Championship. The team's training camp is now underway in Geneva.
The tournament kicks off on Friday. Team Canada will play its preliminary-round games in Paris, in an eight-team bracket that also includes Finland, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.
Alex Edler is the lone Vancouver Canucks representative at this year's tournament, playing for Sweden. They're in the preliminary-round bracket that will play in Cologne, Germany, so I won't see Edler until, hopefully, the medal round.
Sweden has a strong group of skaters, including a defense that features Victor Hedman and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Goaltending looks like it could be a question mark.
The Sedins and Loui Eriksson were asked to participate, but declined.
Canucks prospect Rodigo Abols will also be playing in the Cologne bracket, for Team Latvia.
I'm on my way to cover the tournament for the Canadian Press for the third straight year—and crossing my fingers for a third straight gold medal for the Canadians!
Once again, TSN will have blanket coverage of the tournament on its networks. Canada's tournament kicks off Friday at 11 a.m. PT against the Czech Republic.
To get in the mood, I had a chat late last week with Lucas Aykroyd of IIHF.com. He's based here in Vancouver but has been covering the Worlds for the IIHF since 2000, making this his 18th straight tournament.
Lucas confirmed that Alex Edler is the only Canuck attending this year—Sven Baertschi had to bow out for Switzerland due to injury, and Bo Horvat was held back by his contract status as a restricted free agent.
"It's too bad because he would have added a dimension to Team Canada, and his only real previous Hockey Canada experience was the World Juniors back in 2014," Aykroyd said. "I think Bo took some big steps forward this year.
"He's very mature, he's very composed for a 21-year-old. He has a great ability to rush the puck and a nice shot. You can see that they're grooming him to accept the 'C' when the Sedins' time here is up."
When asked about teams to watch as well as the Canadians, Lucas highlighted Team USA.
The Americans are going to be a lot of fun to watch this year with Johnny Gaudreau up front, Dylan Larkin, of course Jack Eichel. You just see what USA Hockey has been producing recently. Pretty good young defense as well with Jacob Trouba, Charlie McAvoy who was a big part of the World Junior success this year, Noah Hanifin.
They've come very close in recent years. They've been in bronze-medal games, even without all their top-caliber talent.
You look at a roster like this, and maybe this is the year that they break their World Championship (gold-medal) drought going back to 1933.
Lucas is also intrigued by the Russians.
I think it's going to be interesting to see what kind of Russian team shows up this year. Will they have learned from any of their past missteps?
They've won the Worlds most recently in 2012 and 2014 using a pretty KHL-heavy roster, but they obviously weren't successful at the World Cup this past year. Will they be able to buckle down defensively and get enough out of those KHL guys—some of whom are on NHL radars, possibly Las Vegas. How is that going to play out for them?
They're going to have a good team with Kucherov a big piece up front, and Ivan Provorov coming off a nice 30-point rookie season with Philadelphia. So the enigmatic Russians are always interesting to watch.
With players like Carey Price declining a Canadian invitation and even Russians like Alexander Radulov saying no, also due to his contract situation, I asked Lucas how he thought the NHL's decision not to send players to next year's Olympics affected the acceptance rates for various countries at this year's tournament.
I think it's a two-edged sword. I think there's some players that are looking at it as "Well, in the current context this is my one big opportunity to represent my country this year internationally." There may be some guys, perhaps especially in North America, who think "OK, well, if the Olympics aren't on the table, there's a little bit less urgency. I think it's still up in the air—and we still have a few months.
He's still hopeful that the situation may change and we might still see NHLers in PyeongChang in 2018.
Finally, I asked Lucas to name some of his personal highlights from all his international hockey coverage.
There's a long list. I was lucky enough to be there in Salt Lake City when Canada ended the 50-year Olympic drought with Mario Lemieux and Steve Yzerman on the ice and Wayne Gretzky leading the way as the executive director.
At the World Championships, I think the gold-medal game in Quebec City in 2008 was about as dramatic as it gets, with the Russians coming back from a 4-2 deficit and winning it on Ilya Kovalchuk's overtime goal. Being there for Sidney Crosby's overtime winner in Vancouver—that was pretty amazing as well.
As my colleagues will tell you, I often hearken back to the 2000 Worlds in St. Petersburg, Russia. That was my first time and it was quite mind-blowing since the Russians had an All-Star team with Pavel Bure, Sergei Gonchar, Alexei Yashin etc. and ended up finishing 11th. Part of me still can't believe that happened, but it happened.
I'm aiming to post the full audio from our chat later this week.
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