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Caufield and Slafkovsky: two absences that are the talk of the town
Maxime Truman
Caufield and Slafkovsky: two absences that are the talk of the town
Credit: Getty Images
The World Junior Championship is of great interest to any hockey fan during the holiday season. However, the (senior) World Championship in May doesn’t attract as much interest from North American fans.

Year after year, very little is said about this competition in the Montreal media. Except perhaps when Canada is in the gold medal final and the starting goalie is Samuel Montembeault..

But this year is different.

1. A number of players have accepted Canada’s invitation because they see it as an opportunity to impress management and secure their place at the 2026 Olympic Games.

2. Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon and Marc-André Fleury have all said yes to the idea of defending their nation against Donald Trump on the ice in Sweden. Crosby knows that to win, he has to go international; MacKinnon is still shaken by the Avalanche’s early elimination and Fleury will conclude his career in the best possible way (he hopes, at least). Remember that Crosby and MacKinnon have just played a season, a playoff and a 4 Nations tournament..

As a result, the tournament starts today and I’m interested in it. In fact, I’ve just added theIIHF page to my favorite Google Chrome icons.

Four games are on the schedule today: Austria vs Finland, Switzerland vs Czech Republic, Sweden vs Slovakia and Denmark vs USA. No, the winner of the last match doesn’t win Greenland, before you ask..

Canada, meanwhile, kicks off its preliminary campaign tomorrow against mighty Slovenia.

Only three Canadiens players will represent their country in Sweden and Denmark: Mike Matheson (Canada), Emil Heineman (in front of his home team in Sweden) and Vinzenz Rohrer (Austria).

Canada has quite a team on paper: Crosby, MacKinnon, Fleury, Binnington, Sanheim, Matheson, Dobson, Konecky, Horvat, Fantilli, Weegar, Danault, O’Reilly, Celebrini, Johnson (Kent) and the list goes on.

But the morning guys at BPM Sports wondered if Canadiens fans would mind seeing Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky decline their respective team’s invitation.

68% of listeners said no.

In any case, Suzuki is injured and hasn’t received the green light from the Montreal medical team..

As for Caufield and Slafkovsky, I was told during the playoffs that everyone put ice or a hot water bottle in the Habs dressing room after games. There’s reason to believe that Caufield and Slafkovsky are also suffering from minor injuries.

Except that, if they were in a position to represent their nation, Caufield and Slafkovsky would still have had to say yes. Slafkovsky took a while to get going this season, and Caufield would like to represent the U.S. at the Olympics..

In soccer, you can’t really say no to your national team. The culture just isn’t the same in hockey.

Whatever.

We’ll be watching Canada’s first game tomorrow against Slovenia, and we’ll soon forget who’s missing from the tournament.

Too bad Samuel Montembeault is injured, by the way.


Extension

– Renaud Lavoie thinks that Nick Suzuki (even though he’s not at the Worlds right now) should take part in next year’s Olympic Games.

– Ivan Demidov is still in town.

– Marco Donadel is pleased with Prince Owusu’s performance.

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