Now that the World Junior Showcase has wrapped up, I keep finding myself marvelling at how well the Vancouver Canucks were represented at the tournament.
It feels so un-Canuck-like for Vancouver to hold the rights to the tournament's top-line star—in this case, Quinn Hughes. He finished the tournament with a goal and five assists in four games. He was given a day off on Friday against Finland, but came back to record two more assists as the U.S. team stormed back from a 5-1 deficit before eventually falling 6-5 to Canada in the tournament finale.
By the time we got to Kamloops, I had forgotten that Quinn had been suffering from a bad bout of the flu during the Canucks' development camp earlier in July. I think the Showcase was a much better indicator of what he can do against players in his age group. When combined with his steady work on Team USA in Denmark at the World Championship, it looks like the Canucks have hit big again on their first-round draft pick this year.
The U.S defense is not the deepest; Quinn will get a chance to play big minutes and be a team leader at World Juniors this Christmas.
Team USA is in the bracket that will play its preliminary-round games in Victoria, along with Finland, Sweden, Slovakia and Kazakhstan. The Vancouver bracket features Canada, Russia, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Denmark.
The full tournament game schedule has now been released:
The Canucks usually enjoy a long homestand after Christmas but with the tournament taking over Rogers Arena for 10 days, they'll be forced out onto the road. The six-game post-Christmas trip will start in Edmonton and Calgary before moving on to New Jersey and finishing off with the three-in-four spin through Eastern Canada with visits to Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto.
On the Canadian side, Jett Woo also delivered as promised in Kamloops, showing that he's the most physical defenseman in the mix for Canada—quite possibly the most physical in the tournament. Check out this big, clean hit on American forward Jay O'Brien:
Once again belying the idea that games mean nothing in a summer tournament, Saturday's contest ended with a giant goalmouth scrum that resulted in 89 minutes in penalties being handed out.
Twelve of those minutes went to Woo, who got a roughing minor and a misconduct; Quinn got a cross-checking minor as well as a roughing penalty and a 10-minute misconduct. Brady Tkachuk was given a match penalty for attempt to injure when he came in to try to rescue Quinn & Jack from Woo.
"I can be your best buddy off the ice, 100 per cent, I've got your back, but if you're putting on the opposite jersey of me, you better watch out," Woo foreshadowed to
Derek Jory of Canucks.com on Wednesday. "I'm not going around trying to run people, but I'm going to let you know that I'm there."
Woo had seen the Hughes brothers get physical earlier in the tournament:
"I was a little bit surprised, but not a whole lot," he said to Jory about Quinn being involved after the whistle. "You see his skill and everything, but I think sometimes he does become a fired up player - and what player doesn't have that in his game. It was neat to see him get into a scrum like that."
Quinn himself said he was surprised to find himself in the middle of that scrum on Tuesday against Canada, so I'm not sure this is an everyday part of his game; it'll be interesting to see if he retains this feistiness as he moves up toward the NHL.
For me, August hockey has been an excellent way to neutralize summer withdrawal—and now we have just a little over a month until the Young Stars tournament kicks off in Penticton on September 7. Quinn won't be at that event, or at training camp, as it's forbidden by NCAA rules. We should see Summer Showcase participants Woo, Michael DiPietro and Toni Utunen as well as Canucks rookie prospects Elias Pettersson, Jonathan Dahlen, Jonah Gadjovich, Kole Lind, Adam Gaudette and more. It's too bad the Flames and Oilers decided to opt out and stage their own tournament this year. That will limit the Canucks to two games, both against Winnipeg. I expect practices in Penticton will be open to the public as usual.
It's a bit mind-blowing to remember that Brock Boeser was at the Canucks' development camp and Young Stars just one year ago—and had a pretty low-key summer of 2017 as he rehabbed his injured wrist.
If you missed it, Minnesota reporter Michael Russo ran a great profile of Brock and how he's spending his summer vacation in The Athletic last week.
Russo reported that Brock missed last Wednesday's action at Da Beauty League because he was in Toronto filming a commercial. Despite missing that game, he's still tied for the league lead in scoring with 14 points.
The league schedule now ramps up with games twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, so the teams are back in action tonight. Boeser's Team Bic takes on RBC for the first time at 5 p.m. PT on Monday. As usual, the game will be livestreamed on YouTube.
Also, for a look at the top prospects for the 2019 draft, there's more hockey on TV this week. The Hlinka Gretzky Cup is being played in Alberta this year; television coverage kicks off today on TSN's main network with Sweden vs. Slovakia at 2 p.m. PT and Canada vs. Switzerland at 6 p.m.
One final note to wrap up today: more wedding bells in Canuck-land. Sam Gagner attended the wedding of his childhood friend John Tavares last weekend, while Anders Nilsson made it official with the mother of his two children, Emelie, back home in Sweden.
Congrats to the happy couple!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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