Vice President of Hockey Operations for the Canadian National Team, Scott Salmond joined TSN to talk about the World Junior Summer Showcase in Calgary and how they will be evaluating all of these players to try and pick the best possible players for the tournament. He also talks about Maple Leaf picks Mitch Marner and Travis Dermott and what they both can bring to the team.
On the camp:
It’s been great. It’s not just U20; we’ve got 110 of the u17 kids here and they wrap up tomorrow. We’ve got our U18 group; 43 of those guys and we’re going to pick 22 that will leave for the Ivan Hlinka tournament on Thursday. So, a lot of good stuff happening. The big thrill today was three U17 games, the u18 in the afternoon, then we’ve got Canada-Russia for the U20 tonight. It’s pretty incredible to have that many players under one roof, and all the things that have been going on here, it’s been awesome.
It’s about evaluation. It’s not about selection. We’re evaluating players. We want to get to know them, we want our coaching staff, obviously, to get to know them. A few coaches in the West, like Dave Lowry, he’s never seen Mitch Marner. It’s real important for him to get a feel for where those guys are, where they can possibly play on our team. And, at the same time – from a coaching and organization standpoint – we want to set some expectations. When they come back at Christmas team, we’re a step ahead. Everything from what we do off the ice, what we do on the ice, the way we’re going to play, the way we’re going to conduct ourselves – we kind of call all that stuff the “Canadian way” – we want to make sure when they leave here they understand so that when they come back we’re a step ahead.
On Dylan Strome and Mitch Marner playing together:
Yeah, you know what, they played together a lot last summer with the U18s. They were real good. Marner just made so many great plays and Strome was the beneficiary of that; scored a lot of goals for us last summer. We’ve kind of kept those guys together based on the chemistry we saw last year.
On the strength of the most recent draft class:
I think, certainly, the ’97 group is really strong. A really skilled group. You go back to last summer and the performance they had at the Ivan Hlinka, they never won a game by less than four goals. I was there and I never thought it was close in any of those games. You see skilled players and I think you’re going to see a national junior team that’s skilled. You look back to last year, I think we turned the corner in that sense. You look back to the World Championships and as far back as Sochi, you look at how those teams have been put together, skill throughout the lineup. We don’t see this team having a top six and a bottom six, we see them having 13 forwards that can all play, that can all score and contribute. To me, that’s how you win World Championships. If you get our third line against the Russian third line, or you get our fourth line out against their fourth line, I think we’re better every time. I think that’s where we’ve got to make a difference and have skilled guys in that position.
On Mitch Marner and Travis Dermott:
First, Mitch Marner is a dynamic, skilled player. Makes players around him better. He’s got great speed. He’s not the biggest guy in the world, but certainly from what we’ve seen here already and what I saw last summer, that doesn’t make a lot of difference. He likes to have the puck on his stick, he makes great plays. We’re expecting him to be dynamic here this summer and really push to be a part of our team as a young guy.
Travis Dermott has been great. He’s a guy that I hadn’t really seen a lot. He’s a great skater, a heads-up defenceman. He can move pucks, go back and get pucks. The kind of guy that we need. His skating is elite without question. He’s been an interesting guy here for us. He’s another guy who’s come in and opened some eyes, and has been real good. I’m excited to see him on the big ice, too.
