Preds to be well represented at Canada’s WJC camp…
- Updated: June 11, 2010
Canada has announced their 41-man roster for their 2011 World Junior Championship development camp and there are some very familiar names on it.
The Nashville Predators organization will be showing off their 2009 draft class when camp opens as they’ll be represented by Ryan Ellis (Nashville’s 1st round pick), Charles-Olivier Roussel (2nd rd) and Taylor Beck (3rd rd). Ellis and Roussel were two of the best defensemen in Canadian Major Junior last season and Beck led the Guelph Storm in scoring with 93 points in just 61 games (a full season in the OHL is 68 games).
Of course, the inclusion of Ellis in the 2011 WJC Tournament assumes he doesn’t make the NHL roster come October. If he does – and sticks around for more than nine games – he most likely won’t be given clearance by the Preds to play in World Junior competition.
Keep in mind that there are quite a few players on that roster who could fall to the Preds at 18 overall in this years NHL Draft in Los Angeles, California so, in theory, even four or five Nashville choices could be representing their country and Music City when they take the ice in Buffalo, New York in December.
Fun fact: the only 2011 draft-eligible player invited to camp is Sean Couturier, a 17-year old left winger on the QMJHL’s Drummondville Voltigeurs. It’s no surprise that he’s an early favorite to go number one overall in the 2011 Draft in Minnesota.
—-
SPECIAL THANKS: Associate Editor of Yahoo! Sports’ Puck Daddy blog Sean Leahy for the tip via Twitter.
ALSO THANKS: Jim Diamond of The Examiner for correcting an eligibility error I had put in the article. I have edited accordingly.
Related Posts
About Jeremy K. Gover
