World Junior Preliminary Rosters; Two Trades Made

Photo: NHL

By Thomas Harrington & Michael Walters

Last week, preliminary rosters for the 2019 World Junior Championship were announced, and the Anaheim Ducks have three players who will likely be representing their countries at the tournament: Maxime Comtois for Canada, Olle Eriksson Ek for Sweden, and Lukas Dostal for the Czech Republic.

Isac Lundestrom will also likely play for Sweden, but since he’s currently in San Diego, he’ll need permission from the Ducks in order to play, and it’s expected that he’ll receive it. Unfortunately, after playing for Canada at this past summer camp, Antoine Morand was not named to the preliminary roster for Canada. Unless something drastic happens over the next couple of weeks, he will not play in the tournament.

A year ago, Comtois’ inclusion at the 2018 World Junior Championship was a bit of a surprise, but he ended up being one of Canada’s better players. He was one of Canada’s key penalty killers, and scored six points in seven games. Comtois took last year’s strong tournament and used that to catapult him into a monster second half of the season in juniors.

Since being assigned to the QMJHL after his time in Anaheim and San Diego, he’s averaging just over a point per game, and he’ll hopefully see an increase in production following this tournament similar to what he did last year. After being used more as a checker for Canada last year, he’ll be expected to take on more of an offensive role in this year’s tournament. He’s shown that he can score at the NHL level; now he needs to do so against the best his age group has to offer.

Eriksson Ek was a member of Team Sweden last year, but he was the team’s third goaltender and did not play in any games. Still, being the third best goaltender in Sweden for the U20 a year ago is pretty impressive. This time around, he’ll be looking to get some time in the crease and try to help Sweden win gold. Eriksson Ek has spent most of his time this year playing in the Allsvenskan league, where he has good, but not great, numbers.

This will be Dostal’s first chance to play for the Czech Republic at the World Juniors, though he did play for them at the U18 tournament last year. This season, he’s spent most of his time in the Czech2 league and has pretty good numbers there. He’s the youngest goaltender on the Czech roster, and he’ll be fighting for playing time. Hopefully, he won’t be the team’s third goaltender and will get some playing time in the tournament. Even if he doesn’t, being the third best U20 goaltender in the Czech Republic as an 18-year-old is a good sign for his future.

Comtois making Anaheim’s roster out of training camp would have been the biggest surprise to start the season if Lundestrom hadn’t also made Anaheim’s roster out of training camp. Despite scoring only two assists in 15 games with the Ducks, he made a great impression with his smart play up and down the ice. With the Gulls, he has five assists in 10 games and has continued his intelligent play. He hasn’t quite found his scoring touch this year, but, assuming Anaheim lets him play for Sweden, he should be an excellent addition to their roster.

It’s unfortunate that Morand didn’t make it for Canada, or that only two of Anaheim’s draft picks from this past June made it. Hopefully, players like Benoit-Olivier Groulx, Black McLaughlin, and Roman Durny will represent their countries and Anaheim at next year’s tournament. For now, Anaheim fans can look forward to watching three, if not four, of Anaheim prospects at this year’s tournament.

Anaheim Makes Two Trades With Toronto

Today the Anaheim Ducks placed Rickard Rakell(ankle) and Ryan Miller(lower-body) on the injured reserve list. Miller was injured in last night’s wild win over the New Jersey Devils as Joshua Mahura crashed into the goaltender while he was defending against Taylor Hall. Rakell was hurt when he was taken down at center ice by Jonathan Toews in last week’s game against Chicago.

The Ducks also made some roster moves and trades today. Anaheim recalled Andrej Sustr and Jared Coreau. The team sent Joshua Mahura and Andy Welinski down to San Diego. Anaheim also made two trades with Toronto as a result of the injuries. The Ducks acquired Adam Cracknell for Steven Oleksy. They also acquired Jeff Glass for future considerations. Since the Ducks lost Rakell and Miller to injury they traded for a forward and a goalie. It appears there is some concern for how long Miller will be out so the Ducks added another goalie as a depth move. The Ducks added Cracknell in another depth move with Corey Perry, Patrick Eaves, and now Rakell out.

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December 10th, 2018