| 09 August 2011
Although the World Junior Tournament won't be played until December, this week highlights an important one in the development of these young players - individual countries' Evaluation Camps. Although it was expected that Jared Knight (USA) and 2011 first-round pick Dougie Hamilton (Canada) would be the highlights of this year's tournament for Boston fans, the unexpected late addition of Brian Ferlin to team USA to replace Blackhawks prospect Brandon Saad could be an interesting factor for the United States come December. Other potential wild cards for the U-20 tournament are goaltender Lars Volden of Norway and potentially Alexander Khokhlachev, who could play for Russia.
Brian Ferlin, #80, skates against Dougie Hamilton at Bruins' development camp last month.
Canada's evaluation camp kicked off at Rexall Place in Edmonton last Wednesday with a number of practices and culminated in the highly-touted Red/White games, which often draw a crowd of thousands. Hamilton's White Team, which includes 11 2001 1st-round picks (including first-overall pick Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) managed to squeeze out a 5-4 win on Saturday, but fell 8-2 to a dominant Red squad on Sunday lead by Jonathan Huberdeau and backstopped by the talented Louie Domingue. Hamilton did not contribute on the scoresheet but did manage a double minor for high sticking/roughing on Sunday.
At the same time, in Lake Placid, the USA's Blue and White squads have taken on each other twice over the past week, as well as the Swedish and Finnish national teams. After three games, Ferlin is sitting on 1-2=3 totals, and Knight has no points. The two of them are playing together on USA Team White, which also notably includes Rocco Grimaldi, Jason Zucker and Charlie Coyle. After the final round of cuts today, both Ferlin and Knight remain on the roster, as the team was pared down from 44 to 29 players. The newly condensed team kicks off their final three games of camp tomorrow with a tilt against Sweden; they play Finland on Thursday, and wrap up camp with a game against Sweden on Saturday, August 13.
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