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World junior championship: Zach Fucale starting vs. Slovakia; is Canada’s No. 1 goalie job up for grabs?

Neate Sager

Just don't call it a goalie controversy. While Team Canada coach Brent Sutter has the reputation of being a one-goalie guy, but as anticipated after Saturday's barnburner, the Halifax Mooseheads' Zach Fucale will indeed get a shot in goal vs. Slovakia on Monday (11:30 a.m. ET/8:30 a.m. PT, TSN/BTN livechat).

[World junior scoreboard]

Every Team Canada coach seems to like to keep the media and fans in suspense over his goaltending, so it's entirely possible that this was all part of the plan. Sutter hasn't committed to whom Canada (1-0-1-0) would start the all-important New Year's Eve game vs. Team USA (3-0-0-0) that could likely decide first place in Group A.

From Terry Koshan (@koshtorontosun:)

That's how it has to be; Fucale needs to believe that he enters the fray with a bona fide chance to wrest away the top job from Paterson, who stopped 46-of-52 shots over the opening two games vs. Germany and the Czech Republic. Fucale is eminently capable and it can't hurt that the 18-year-old might have a book on one of Slovakia's big guns, since he and Martin Reway are both Montreal Canadiens draft choices whose QMJHL teams met in the President's Cup playoffs in April. (Halifax swept Gatineau 4-0, but Reway's Olympiques beat the Mooseheads 5-2 in their only regular-season meeting of this season on Oct. 30, with Reway getting a dazzling short-handed assist.)

Last season in Ufa, Canadian coach Steve Spott used Boston Bruins prospect Malcolm Subban for all four round-robin games amid concern over some soft goals as the team opened 4-0 with tight wins over the U.S. (2-1) and Russia (4-1). Fellow 'tender Jordan Binnington didn't see action until Canada had fallen into a deep early hole in its semifinal loss to the U.S.; Binnington was then given a chance in the bronze medal game, but Subban was reinserted after Russia scored on three of its first five shots.

Sutter, et al., would prefer people to see this as standing operating procedure. Keep Fucale fresh in case he's needed later; he wasn't brought to Sweden to be a backup; and Paterson has a chance to do a memory wipe and bounce back vs. the Americans. So it's not controversy, just intrigue.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet. Please address any questions, comments or concerns to btnblog@yahoo.ca.