Mitch Marner and Dylan Strome on bubble of a different kind for Team Canada

TORONTO – Canada could have many as nine returning players on its roster when the World Junior Hockey Championship begins in less than five months in Toronto and Montreal.

Not that they’re all expected to be back – or even particularly want to be back.

“I feel like I’m done with junior and I don’t want to be there next year,” said Dylan Strome, Canada’s top centre at the last world junior tournament.

“I’ve wanted to play in the NHL for a long time and if Arizona thinks (playing in junior is) best for me next year, I don’t have a choice. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Strome, a member of the OHL’s Erie Otters and an Arizona Coyotes prospect, is one the highest profile potential returnees. He was the OHL’s scoring champion in 2015.

And then there’s Strome’s 2016 tourney linemate and friend Mitch Marner. Marner earned the OHL’s regular season, playoff and Memorial Cup MVP trophies en route to a London Knights national championship in May. The Toronto Maple Leafs prospect’s mantle can’t have much room left on it.

Strome and Marner were the third and fourth overall picks in the 2015 NHL draft. Marner recorded 116 points last season and Strome had five fewer. They seemingly have little to prove at the junior level.

When Strome was asked about those very prospects he couldn’t help but chuckle a bit.

“It’s not really up to me,” he said. “I felt like I could I have been done (playing in junior) last year. I made it to the last day of camp and the last cuts.

“Hopefully this year I can make it a little farther and show what I can do in exhibition games. I think they were pretty impressed with me last year.”

Like Strome, Marner is taking it all in stride.

Known for his incredible skill, Marner is slight. He’s listed at five-foot-11 and 164 pounds. He is trying to gain weight by eating and going to the gym more often. He joked that passersby will offer him some of their unwanted pounds.

Playing for the Leafs is on Marner’s radar. But it won’t necessarily be a tough pill to swallow if he does return to the Knights.

“London’s been a place for the last few years I can call home,” said Marner, a right winger. “Whenever I go back, it still feels like home.

“To go back and learn more, it wouldn’t be that bad.”

Of the nine players eligible to return, Canadian assistant coach Kris Knoblauch expects as many as five to start the upcoming season in the NHL.

Of course, Strome and Marner are among that group. Knoblauch should have a pretty good idea. He coaches Strome in Erie and watches Marner regularly as a division rival in London.

“They should crave it. That’s why they’re top athletes,” Knoblauch said. “They like the competition. They want to succeed. If they didn’t have that in them they probably wouldn’t be in the position that they are.

“But I think it’s also beneficial to have some disappointments. Every athlete has them. How they respond is usually how they determine their future. The uncertainty in their future can be tough.”

Strome and Marner tied atop Canada’s scoring list with four goals and two assists in January, but the team fell in the quarterfinal to eventual gold medallists Finland. It was the first time Canada failed to reach the medal round since 1998.

Going back to junior – or at least competing in the world juniors – wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Although playing in the NHL is the goal, another trip to the under-20 event would present a chance to make amends.

“We’re doing our best to build up to that gold medal game and (get) that gold medal,” Strome said. “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re playing next year, the facts are the facts. We came in sixth place last year. That’s obviously not good enough.”