Dillon Dube Makes Canada’s World Junior Team

Last night, after defeating the Czech Republic 8-0 in a World Junior selection camp exhibition game, Canada’s management made their final 5 cuts, with 2 forwards needing to be released. A couple of hours after the game was over, it was announced that Sam Steel (Anaheim) and Zach Senyshyn (Boston) were the 2 forwards cut, which meant that Calgary Flames prospect Dillon Dube had made Canada’s World Junior Team.

The versatile forward seemed like a long shot to make the team, but the 56th overall pick from 2016 beat out multiple first round picks from this year (Steel, Brett Howden) and last year (Senyshyn, Nick Merkley). After missing a good chunk of the season due to injury, Dube has gotten into 10 games with his WHL Kelowna team, and posted 1 goal and 10 assists along with 14 penalty minutes. He impressed in Canada’s camp, where he had 1 goal and 2 assists in exhibition play.

While listed as a centre, Dube can also play the wing, which surely helped his case in pushing to make the team. A shifty offensive player, he can play a variety of rolls, whether it in an offensive spot in the top-six, or a depth role to help grind out games. Canada was obviously very high on him, selecting him over higher prestige players, especially considering the amount of game time he has missed this season. This is something that has not happened very often for Canadian forward prospects in the Flames organization, as Dube become just the third Flames forward in the past 10 years to represent Canada.

Big accomplishment for Dube, good news for Flames fans, hopefully he can help lead his country to Gold. While other countries still have cuts to go, the Flames look to be well represented at this tournament, with Oliver Kylington a lock for Sweden, Tyler Parsons and Adam Fox are very likely for the United States, while Pavel Karnaukhov is in Russian camp.

Dube and Canada begin their quest for Gold on Boxing Day against Russia, in Toronto.