The World Junior Summer Showcase is taking place this week at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, and it’s taking place in the summer for a simple reason.
Most of the participants for the U.S. teams (USA White and USA Blue) are NCAA-committed athletes, so they can’t take part in a normal fall training camp as they’d be in school in September or October…
And in terms of the European players for Team Sweden and Team Finland, those players also have team commitments to leagues which usually start regular-season play in September as well, so, for both parties, there’s no other time to really “warm up” for the World Junior Championship.
As such, I’m pretty damn gloomy that our transportation issues persist here at TMR, preventing me from attending the WJSS at the only time of year when you can really interact with the players close to home base.
There’s some good news regarding Red Wings prospect and 2024 draft pick Max Plante, though, as Plante’s apparently doing something that the almost pure play-maker hasn’t done with authority as of yet in his young career.
According to Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis and FloHockey’s Chris Peters, Plante is finding his shot. He scored a goal for Team USA Blue today:
#14 Max Plante, LW (Detroit Red Wings): I wanted Plante to shoot the puck so much more than he did last year, so it felt good to see him score on his first shot of the game. He also nabbed an assist in a great first game against U-20 competition. I was higher on Plante than many others last year because of how well he passes the puck, but I’m glad we saw him get a few dangerous chances of his own, too.
And Peters:
Max Plante, LW (DET): Plante is being given some really good looks with this team, playing on USA Blue’s first power play unit with Hagens, Leonard, Perreault and Buium. He is a very smart player who makes good decisions with the puck and has some creativity. There’s also a good work ethic there and he showed off his speed at various points. I think he made a positive impression with the maturity of his game.
Plante, who’s going to play for the University of Minnesota-Duluth this upcoming season, is never going to be huge at 5’11” and 176 pounds, and he’s never going to be a natural goal-scorer…
But, as a player who posts massive assist totals (he posted 46 assists among his 61 points with the U.S. Under-18 team this past season), it’s good to hear that he’s being placed in a position to succeed by coach David Carle.
