World Junior Championship helping to fuel growth of hockey

The Coaches Room is a weekly column by one of four former NHL coaches and assistants who will turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher. Jim Corsi, David Marcoux, Paul MacLean and Joe Mullen will take turns providing insight.
In this edition, MacLean, former coach of the Ottawa Senators, looks at the impact of the IIHF World Junior Championship on the development of young players striving to one day leave their mark on the NHL. The 2018 tournament began Tuesday in Buffalo.

First off, as an NHL person, you're always looking forward to the World Junior Championship because it gives you a bit of a distraction from your everyday process of preparing for games or scouting other NHL teams.
But it cuts much deeper than that.
The WJC gives you a chance to watch young players from all over the globe, the next generation of NHLers in many instances. They're not always your players -- in other words, prospects who belong to the organization you are working for -- but you are getting to watch a younger version of the game.
As a coach, that's important. It gives you the opportunity to see how these young players are trying to change the game. How are they trying to create offense? What different ways are they attempting to defend? Are they doing things in a unique way based solely on their youth and their athleticism?
Then there's the aspect of being an NHL coach and specifically looking at the players from your organization. You're proud of your scouting staff and praising them for the five, six, seven prospects they've unearthed who are playing in the tournament. That's a credit to your scouting staff and your general manager.

Moreover, as a coach, once your players are on their teams, you want to know what their roles are. Are they in a supporting role or a leadership role? Any coach wants his guys in as prominent a role as possible. That's how they develop.
When I was in Ottawa, forward Mika Zibanejad, our first-round pick (No. 6) in the 2011 NHL Draft, scored the gold medal-winning goal in overtime for Sweden in a 1-0 victory against Russia at the 2012 World Juniors. At the 2015 World Juniors, Curtis Lazar, a forward we took in the first round (No. 17) in the 2013 NHL Draft, was the captain for the champion Canadian team. You want your players playing in important situations so that when you get them at the NHL level, they'll have the experience when key situations come up.
One aspect that has changed with the World Junior tournament over the years is the talent pool -- specifically, there are more and more 18-year-old players in the NHL than ever before, leaving less and less of them to play in the event. With the salary cap and the impact that young players have had in the league, it's obviously harder to send them back to do that.
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My view on the subject is quite simple. If a player is good enough and ready to play in the NHL, he should be playing in the NHL no matter how old he is. But more often than not, those are exceptional players.
Not every player drafted at 18 is ready to take on the NHL at that age. In those instances, many of the players sent to the World Juniors are making their second appearance in the tournament and are poised to take on more significant roles. As I mentioned earlier, that's what you want.
Then there is the aspect of representing your country on the international stage.
I played for Canada at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. Before that time, there were very few opportunities to do it, far fewer than today. There was no Under-17 tournament, there was no Under-18. I think the World Juniors first started in 1978 when I was still playing junior in Hull, Quebec. There weren't the opportunities to play for your country. So when I had the chance in 1980 to play for Canada at the Olympics, it was a huge deal. It was the first time Canada had been back at the Olympics since 1968. For those of us who got the opportunity, it meant so much to do it.

These days it's so much different. It's so regimented, so orchestrated. At the end of the day, it's such a great opportunity to play for Team Canada. But these kids get many more chances at many more age groups to do it than we did.
Nevertheless, I think that as the World Junior tournament has gotten bigger and bigger, it's been great for the growth of hockey. The success of any country's player development goes back to the grass roots level. Young players getting to perform on the world stage goes a long way toward that.
In summation, I just think the World Junior is a wonderful tournament. Some people stop everything they do over the holidays to watch it. I know my mom never misses a game. Not one. No matter who is playing.
That's what it's all about.