Canucks Prospect Guillaume Brisebois Invited to Canada’s World Junior Selection Camp

For each of the last four World Junior Championships, Team Canada has been represented by a Canucks prospect (twice by Bo Horvat and twice by Jake Virtanen). While Vancouver’s most recent first round selections hail from Finland and the United States, 2015 third round pick Guillaume Brisebois is intent on making sure that the Canucks are represented once again.

Hockey Canada announced their list of invites to their 2016 Junior Selection Camp, and Brisebois has made the cut.

Taken with the higher pick received in the Eddie Lack trade with Carolina, Brisebois was selected 66th overall a year and a half ago. Since then, he’s been plying his trade in junior for a couple of different squads, both of which he has captained.

In his draft-plus-one season, he returned to the Acadie-Bathurst Titan, one of the worst teams in the entire CHL. There he more than doubled his goal total in nine fewer games, putting up 26 points (10 goals, 16 assists) in 52 contests.

Prior to the start of the 2016-17 campaign, Brisebois was traded (at his request) to the Charlottetown Islanders, a substantially better team. In 21 games so far, he’s managed 14 points (three goals, 11 assists), which puts him on pace for his best season yet. He was also named captain of the Islanders, making this the third straight season he has captained his junior squad. Not bad for a 20-year old.

Brisebois has previous experience with Hockey Canada, having represented them at the Ivan Hlinka and World Under-18 tournaments in 2014-15, where he totaled three assists in a combined 12 games. Brisebois has also been a member of the QMJHL all-stars representing Canada in the Junior Super Series against Russia each of the last three seasons.

Canada has invited ten defencemen to the selection camp, and is likely to bring eight of them to the tournament, which will be hosted once again by Toronto and Montreal. Thomas Chabot is the lone returning defenceman from last year’s WJC tournament invited to selection camp. The list also includes three other first round picks: Noah Juulsen (2015), Jake Bean and Dante Fabbro (2016). You can see the full roster here, and I’ve charted the defencemen below:

Brisebois is a relatively low scoring defenceman (his usefulness would be more related to matchups and shutting down opposition rather than offence), and the fact that he is one of eight lefties will work against him. Additionally, this list does not include Jakob Chychrun, the 16th overall selection from the 2016 draft who broke camp as an 18-year old with the Arizona Coyotes. If the Coyotes end up loaning Chychrun to Team Canada, Brisebois’ chances will become even slimmer.

There’s still nearly a month to go before the tournament, and injuries could still factor in, so don’t count Brisebois out yet.

On a related note, of equal or greater interest to Canucks fans will be Nolan Patrick, the presumptive first overall selection at next year’s entry draft. Patrick is the lone 2017 draft eligible player on the selection roster, and despite having not played since October 11th, he intends to be ready in time for Canada’s camp.

The selection camp will take place from December 10th to 14th in Blainville, Quebec, and includes three exhibition games.