When he made the Montreal Canadiens’ roster, the odds of Victor Mete playing at the World Junior Hockey Championship in Buffalo were low.
On Monday, the Canadiens announced that they would be loaning Mete to Team Canada for their final selection camp in St. Catharines where Mete will have an opportunity to play at his first World Junior tournament.
Mete impressed early with Montreal, paired with Shea Weber and began the year playing alongside the Canadiens’ captain, logging more than 20 minutes of ice time in four of Montreal’s first eight games.
In four of the Canadiens’ last nine games, Mete has been a healthy scratch as rumours began to swirl about what Montreal planned to do with him.
Mete had been moved from the top defence pairing to the bottom two and his minutes had been reduced.
The rule of thumb with young players in the National Hockey League tends to centre on how much they are playing. If they aren’t getting significant minutes with the big club, teams will sometimes start to look at other options so that a young player can continue his development on the ice instead of on the bench or watching from high above the ice surface in the press box.
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Mete will now have an opportunity to play with his peers, who are teenagers like him, instead of grown men.
Montreal has not indicated what they might do with Mete should he make Team Canada and play in Buffalo. There are two choices. Mete could re-join the Canadiens or he could return to the London Knights in the Ontario Hockey League.
Past examples will tell you to reach into your pocket for a coin.
In 2015, Jake Virtanen was loaned to Team Canada by the Vancouver Canucks and was part of a gold medal win and then returned to Vancouver to finish out the season instead of going to the Western Hockey league.
In 2014, Anthony Duclair went through the opposite ending after he helped Canada win gold as well. Duclair played 18 games with the New York Rangers that year and was then loaned to Team Canada. He put up huge numbers on Canada’s top line with Max Domi and Sam Reinhart and then landed in the QMJHL with the Quebec Remparts, who were hosting the Memorial Cup that year.
That means unless Montreal lets everyone in on their plans, anything is possible when it comes to Mete’s future destination.
The move helps Team Canada immensely. Mete is known as an absolute team player who will give everything he has no matter what uniform he happens to be wearing. Playing for Team Canada has always been a dream of his and one that hasn’t happened before, despite Mete attending Canada’s final selection camp twice.
Decisions will still have to be made on other possible NHL players eligible to play for Team Canada at the World Juniors. They include Nolan Patrick in Philadelphia, Pierre-Luc Dubois in Colorado and Samuel Girard in Colorado.
Team Canada’s selection camp runs from today to Wednesday, Dec. 15.
A pre-tournament game between Canada and the Czech Republic will be played on Dec. 20 at Budweiser Gardens in London.
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