A big boost for Canada's World Junior team this morning as two of the eight NHLers who are eligible for the team were released to play in the tournament by their NHL teams. Joining the Canadian camp (and all but certainly guaranteed spots on the team) are forwards Brett Connolly of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Devante Smith-Pelly of the Anaheim Ducks.
It's obviously going to make the Canadian team better to get back two players who are currently good enough to be holding down jobs in the NHL. (Connolly is also a veteran of last year's Canadian team, bringing the number of such players on the roster up to four.) There are still six other Canadian 18 or 19 year olds in the NHL who are eligible to play on the team but who have not been released and are not expected to be: Sean Couturier (Philadelphia Flyers), Erik Gudbranson (Florida Panthers), Ryan Johansen (Columbus Blue Jackets), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (Edmonton Oilers), Tyler Seguin (Boston Bruins) and Jeff Skinner (Carolina Hurricanes).
From the WHL perspective, if you're the Prince George Cougars or a fan of theirs, the release of Connolly to play at the WJCs might give you a glimmer of hope of seeing him back in the WHL later. The fact that Tampa feels that he is expendable enough to loan to the Canadian junior team for a month means there's a possibility that come the end of the tournament in early January, that the Lightning might think the best step for Connolly's development is to finish the season in junior. So if you're a Cougar fan who wants Connolly back in your lineup, now would be a good time for you to root for the Lightning to get hot - because the better they play without him, the more likely they are to conclude that they can do without him for the rest of the season.
Of course, given Prince George's low position in the standings, it is far more likely that, if Connolly DOES return to the WHL, he'll immediately be flipped to a contender at the January trade deadline. But we're getting very far ahead of ourselves already.....
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