It’s August, but we’ve got news!
In fact, we’re expecting to get a lot more news over the next week or so, as three Vancouver Canucks prospects will represent their countries at the rescheduled 2022 World Junior Championship this week in Edmonton.
Joining Jacob Truscott (USA), Joni Jurmo (Finland), is 2022 15th overall pick Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who will suit up for Team Sweden at this year’s tournament.
It comes as little surprise that Lekkerimäki has qualified for the team, as the Canucks’ first round selection was highly touted by scouts everywhere ahead of the draft.
Jonathan Myrenberg, Lucas Forsell, and the man we like to call RePetey (Elias Pettersson), were all recently invited to Sweden’s selection camp for the 2023 World Junior Championship, which will take place in December.
Lekkerimäki will still qualify for that tournament as well, and one would assume he’ll be given an even bigger role than the one he gets in this year’s tournament, which kicks off this week at Rogers Place.
Here’s what Chris Faber had to say about Lekkerimäki after a week of watching him in person at Canucks development camp in July.
The Canucks’ top prospect had some highlights at this camp and really showed off his strengths at this camp. The release of his shot was electric and stood out even more than other top shooters like Aidan McDonough or Danila Klimovich. The puck explodes off of Jonathan Lekkerimäki’s blade and his stick-handling ability is also very impressive.
Though we saw a lot we liked, there’s still a long way to go before we see him play in the NHL. Lekkerimäki needs to put on some size before he can compete in the NHL and as a player who was drafted just over a week ago, that should come as no surprise.
He will get a lot of minutes in the Allsvenskan next season and we are excited to see him have success in Sweden for a year or more likely two before he can come over to North America.
We’ll be keeping you up to date with wall-to-wall coverage of this year’s tournament, so be sure to stay tuned to CanucksArmy all week(s) long!

More from CanucksArmy