Prospect Report: Dumais' big year has him in World Juniors consideration

As the points kept racking up, the question was on the mind of many who follow junior hockey - would Blue Jackets draft pick Jordan Dumais be invited to Team Canada's selection camp for the upcoming IIHF World Junior Championship.
The wildly popular tournament, which begins later this month, brings together the top Under-20 players in the world every year in a matchup of the top hockey countries in the world.

A third-round pick who is still just 18 years old, Dumais was likely considered a longshot when this season began, but simply put, the 2022 CBJ third-round pick put up numbers that could not be ignored. Though he's been dinged by scouts for his size and his skating abilities, Dumais currently leads the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with 54 points on the season in 25 games.
His 19 goals and 35 assists had him in the running to lead the entire Canadian Hockey League, though he's been out for the past few games with an upper-body injury that is considered minor. Dumais has points in 21 of 25 games this year, including two six-point games, a five-point game, a four-point game and three hat tricks.
That production is one of the reasons Dumais was chosen as one of 29 players invited to this year's selection camp, which will be held from Friday through Monday. In the end, 23 players will be selected to represent Canada -- which won this summer's COVID-postponed version of the event when Kent Johnson scored in overtime of the gold medal game -- in this year's event.
To hear more about Dumais' incredible season, his thoughts on potentially representing his country and much more, listen to this week's edition of the Pipeline Podcast with Dylan Tyrer.
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The Pipeline Podcast: Jordan Dumais

Monsters Still Racking Up Points

While the Cleveland Monsters have seemingly sent half their roster down Interstate 71 to Columbus, the team has still managed to stay afloat in the AHL's North Division standings.
Cleveland's 10-6-1-2 record is good for 23 points and third place in the division behind Toronto (27) and Rochester (24). Trent Vogelhuber's squad is coming off a weekend in which the Monsters welcomed Rochester to town, with the Amerks capturing a 4-3 game in overtime Thursday before Cleveland rallied for a 4-3 victory Saturday.
In the opening loss, Brendan Gaunce and Emil Bemstrom scored to tie the game at 2, then Joona Luoto tallied to tie things at 3 at the 19:11 mark to gain the point. Rochester beat goalie Pavel Cajan, who made 23 saves, with eight seconds left in overtime to earn the winner.
In the Saturday night win, the opposite happened as Cleveland played from ahead thanks to Josh Dunne's goal 38 seconds into the game. Luoto gave Cleveland a 2-1 lead later before goals from Gaunce and Robbie Payne helped seal the deal. Jet Greaves finished with 29 saves in the win.
Luoto has made a major impact thus far with a 5-3-8 line in seven games, while the team's leading scorer, Trey Fix-Wolansky (10-12-22 in 14 games) has returned from Columbus. Other leading scorers include Emil Bemstrom (10-9-19 in 14 games), Justin Richards (5-11-16 in 18 games), Gaunce (6-8-14 in 12 games) and David Jiricek (3-7-10 in 12 games).
Cleveland hits the road this week for games Friday at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and then both Saturday and Sunday at Hershey. The Monsters are back home to take on Laval on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 17-18.

World Juniors

Both the United States and Canada announced their camp rosters for the upcoming IIHF World Junior Championship, which begins Boxing Day in Halifax and Moncton, and we noted, Dumais made the cut and could end up representing his home country at the event.
There were some other CBJ players who were thought to have a shot to make Team Canada, but they did not make the list. That includes two first-round picks - defensemen Corson Ceulemans (2021) and Denton Mateychuk (2022) as well as 2022 second-round pick Luca Del Bel Belluz, a centerman.
All had taken part in Team Canada camps previously but will be on the outside looking in for the event.
Meanwhile, Team USA did have a CBJ prospect invited as well in defenseman Aidan Hreschuk. A third-round pick of Carolina in 2021 who came to the Jackets in the Max Domi deal last season, Hreschuk is currently a sophomore at Boston College.
While he is without a point this season in 14 games for the Eagles, the Long Beach, Calif., native brings smooth skating and strong defensive abilities to the table, earning him a look from the American squad.
We'll keep tabs on future announcements to see if any further CBJ players make the cut for their native countries.

Prospect Notes

• Don't look now but Dmitri Voronkov is on fire. After being limited by injury early in the season, the 2019 fourth-round pick has found his game with Ak Bars Kazan of the KHL. Voronkov has posted seven goals in the last seven games, including a pair of two-goal games back-to-back Nov. 27 and Nov. 30 vs. Sochi and Sibir, respectively. In all, the big centerman has a 7-5-12 line in the last 12 contests.
• Even casual hockey fans might know the leading scorer in the Western Hockey League is Connor Bedard, as the presumed No. 1 overall pick has 64 points in 28 games this year with Regina. He also leads the league with 37 assists, but the player right behind him is CBJ 2021 third-round pick Stanislav Svozil. The Czech defenseman has 30 helpers on the year, aided by the fact he's on a seven-game assist streak that features 16 helpers overall. Amazingly enough, just two of those assists in the last seven games have come on goals scored by Bedard.
• And while Dumais is running away with the QMJHL scoring title, Quebec forward James Malatesta is in the running to lead the league in goals. The CBJ fifth-round pick in the 2021 draft who signed with the Jackets last week has 22 tallies on the season, three behind Val-d'Or's Alexandre Doucet.