A Merry Christmas Roundtable: World Juniors Edition

The Canucks may have entered the Christmas break on somewhat of a positive, but the stark reality is they’ve a long way to go before even reentering the realm of respectability. It’s been that kind of year. Given the lack of attainable success from this year’s incarnation of the Canucks, looking at what is to come becomes an increasingly favourable proposition.

With the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships set to start tomorrow (my favourite holiday tradition, if we’re being entirely honest) the pieces which will make the foundation of this future will be on full display. While the volume of Canucks prospects in this tournament leave much to be desired, there are no qualms to be had with the quality of each player. Jake Virtanen is set to return to the Canadian team, while 2015 first round selection, Brock Boeser, will be donning the red, white and blue.

Which brings us to the question du jour: Which of these two Canucks prospects, are you more excited to watch?

Has to be Virtanen. With all due respect to Boeser, who is putting up a fantastic campaign himself at the University of North Dakota, he is still a couple years away from gracing us with his presence in a Canucks uniform (they’ve already said he’s staying at UND for one more year). Virtanen had a hot start and made the team, but he’s cooled off and maybe a tournament like this is what he needs to rekindle that offensive fire, even if he ends up going back to junior after the tournament. The Canucks have already shown a whole lot of confidence in him by giving him a roster spot, I’m excited to see how he responds to a new opportunity.

Brock Boeser.

I’ve been able to catch a couple of his games and he is a treat to watch. Offensively gifted, laser shot and good speed. He has worked hard on his passing game at UND this year and it shows, as his whole line feeds off of each other.

Canucks fans are going to be even more excited about Boeser after the WJHC.

Boeser because I haven’t seen anything but his highlight reel goals and it will be (thumbs up emoji) cool to see the rest of his game. I have heard only fun things.

ok that thumbs up is in the middle of my response but leave it there it’s funny

Brock Boeser for sure. I love me some Jake Virtanen, but I’ve seen him plenty. I watched him last year in Calgary, I watched him last year in Utica and I obviously watched him this year in Vancouver. Boeser on the other hand, I’ve only managed to see highlights of him. I’m excited to see what he can do in a full game. I know he can shoot and I know he can pass, I can’t wait to see how the rest of his game looks.

As many of the others have said, Brock Boeser is my go-to here. I actually expect Virtanen to have the better tournament, as he’ll be in a higher-profile role with Canada, but we’ve seen so little of Boeser by comparison; this is an opportunity to get a few great looks at him that aren’t curated by YouTubers.

As well, since he gets to play with his UND linemate in Nick Schmaltz, we get to see how he utilizes his familiar teammates, followed by daydreams of him playing with <centre of your choice>. Sorry Jake, I know you’re going to kill it, but I want to see what Brock can do.

Goalies are voodoo, first of all.

I’m more stoked to see Boeser for a couple of reasons. Obviously, there’s the question of whether he and Team USA can make up for last year, which saw a team with both Jack Eichel and Austin Matthews fall short of expectations. There’s also the question, though, of where he falls among Canucks prospects… And where better to see that than on the world stage? We see how various prospects perform against their respective leagues each year, and we rank them based on their relative performances on those junior levels. Seeing how Boeser performs on the world stage should be the final test for seeing where he falls in the team future’s depth chart, though, and that’s something that’s hard not to get excited about.

Lukas Jasek.

Well, I guess those plans were thwarted with the news that Jasek was among the final cuts for the Czech Republic side. What a truly bizarre year Jasek’s having…

Anyways, I have to go with Boeser. Consider me the Canucks Army O.G. of this conversation, so it’s been ingrained to this point to marginalize any and all of Jake Virtanen’s accomplishments, meaning the bar is set unreasonably high for me to even be remotely satisfied with his play. I mean, seriously… he’s a nineteen year old, returning from the NHL and he couldn’t even get a letter? Bust.

I think most of our writers have touched on this already, but it’s the unknown elements to Boeser which makes him a more appealing prospect to pay most attention to. Beyond the wealth of platitudes laid firmly at his feet in and around the draft, I’ve very little with which to base my opinion on Boeser.