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WJC2012: Huberdeau won’t be on skates Sunday

neate sager

What was that about Jonathan Huberdeau's chance of participating in the first practice of Team Canada's selection camp "being closer to zero per cent than 50%?"

The media corps that greeted the Canadian aspirants upon their arrival in Calgary found Huberdeau, as TSN's Farhan Lalji tweeted wearing a walking boot. The No. 3 pick in the NHL draft and reigning MasterCard Memorial Cup, as per Mark Masters, also will not be on the ice Sunday.

Huberdeau, who is coming back from a broken foot, appears as if he will be ready to take part in some, if not all, of the on-ice activities.

"He's going to be day-to-day," head coach Don Hay said. "We want to evaluate him, not sure if he'll get on the ice the first day (Sunday), but he'll work with our off-ice people and we'll see where he's at." (TSN

Canada is hardly short on alternatives for the scoring line spots, of course, especially after 19-year-olds Brett Connolly and Devante Smith-Pelly were loaned by their NHL clubs Thursday. Huberdeau is a dynamic talent who can play centre or wing and both finish off at the net and distribute the puck. It sounds like this is shaping up to be a situation where Hay and the coaching staff might have to give it time and assume Huberdeau will be game-fit by the time the tournament opens Dec. 26.

It probably won't be the end of the world for Huberdeau personally if he misses the tournament, but this could be his only shot. What Ryan Spooner, the Boston Bruins prospect whose shot at Team Canada has been nixed by mononucleosis, told Sunaya Sapurji earlier today — "hopefully in a few years I'll be having a successful career somewhere and I'll be able to look back on it and say, 'Yeah, it would have been a fun time' " — probably isn't that far off from the prevailing attitude among most players. It's not a be-all, but it's more of a rite on way to the NHL. Of course, it's also where the country typically gets to know the next generation of Canadian NHL stars. Huberdeau was the best player on a dominant Saint John Sea Dogs team last year, but it seems like he perhaps hasn't had the recognition that's been accorded to other outstanding juniors in Ontario and Western Canada. This is supposed to be his time.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet (photo: CHL Images).