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Team Canada's Connor McDavid feeling reenergized, hopeful of playing one world junior exhibition game

Team Canada's Connor McDavid feeling reenergized, hopeful of playing one world junior exhibition game

Time off the ice has helped Connor McDavid recharge.

One month to the day after breaking a metacarpal bone in his right hand during an out-of-character fight in an Erie Otters game, Team Canada's talisman said he believes he has more energy than prior to the layoff. McDavid will be participating in practice this weekend during the national junior team's selection camp in Toronto. The best-case scenario is that he will play in at least one of the team's three pre-competition games on either Dec. 19, 21, or 23. It would take at least a week without the cast to feel safe.

"It's fine, I can take full slapshots and all that so the hand feels good," the 17-year-old top NHL draft prospect said on Thursday afternoon. "The wrist is not too stiff at all. It should be all good.

"I've been skating for three weeks now," added McDavid, who had a gaudy 51 points in 18 games for the Otters before injuring himself while fighting the Mississauga Steelheads' Bryson Cianfrone, who's also the farthest thing from a habitual fighter. "Mostly bag skates. I've been saying that my legs have been feeling better than they were before I got hurt ... you're just fresher and all that. I feel fresh and I feel ready to go."


It's not an absolute requirement that McDavid wear the Maple Leaf in a game before the world junior championship begins in earnest on Boxing Day against Slovakia in Montreal. Understandably, it's preferable to have one dry run with McDavid, who was dominant at his two appearances vs. the Czech Republic and Russia at the August development camp in the Montreal area, in the lineup.

"He's going to skate with no contact and we'll start from there," Team Canada coach Benoît Groulx said. "We'll see how it goes. Hopefully we're going to be able to have him for one exhibition game.

"It would be nice to have that, but it's most important to have him for the competition," added Groulx, who coaches the Quebec League's Gatineau Olympiques. "We will follow what the doctor says and how he reacts to shooting and passing the puck. Right now there's no rush. We want to be patient with him in order to have him at 100 per cent.

"We don't want to put Connor McDavid on the ice at 75%. We're going to have to see how he reacts to practising."

McDavid added that he was able to shot the puck without much discomfort before having the cast removed from his hand on Tuesday. Overall, though, he appears to be ahead of schedule with his recovery and has put the incident — which intensified the conversation about fighting in junior hockey — in his rearview mirror.

"You're just worrying about everything and everything just sort of flashes before your eyes," said McDavid, whose only other fighting major in his 2½ OHL seasons came about from a tussle where he didn't even drop his gloves. "Obviously, it's not a very serious injury and I missed a bit of time there."

"I wasn't exactly taking it too easy with the cast off," McDavid added. "I was still shooting a little bit with the cast on."

As a double underage player, McDavid was dominant at the 2013 world under-18 championship in Russia, which involved many players who will form the core of Canada's competitors. The Newmarket, Ont., native became the rare 16-year-old to play for Canada at the under-20 level last winter in Malmo, Sweden, but ultimately all anyone recalls is the country finishing out of the medals. By the time Canada's fate had played out with a semifinal loss to Finland and bronze-medal game setback against Russia, it was long forgotten that McDavid had come through with a deadlock-breaking power-play goal in a win over Team USA.

McDavid gleaned a lot from the experience.

"Just the intensity and the roller-coaster that is the world juniors, there's so many ups and downs," he said. "Not getting too high and not getting too low, that's probably the key. Obviously, last year didn't necessarily go the way we wanted it to, but you learn from it and everyone's excited to be here."

The tournament schedule sets up for a border battle between Canada and the U.S. and top draft prospects McDavid and Jack Eichel on New Year's Eve in Montreal. McDavid neatly brushed aside the spectre of a showdown that's sure to be overhyped.

"If you start looking ahead, that's where you can get into trouble," he said.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.