World junior championship: Jake Paterson to start vs. Czech Republic

Once the world junior championship begins, Team Canada — so the thinking goes — can't have two No. 1's since that would make 11.

Nineteen-year-old Jake Paterson has not fashioned the most sterling statline (3.64 average, .900 save percentage) while toiling for an oft-leaky Saginaw Spirit team in the Ontario Hockey League. Yet Canada likes his experience with the event, so that means it looks like he's affirmed himself as the starter with the 18-year-old Zach Fucale, who backstopped the Halifax Mooseheads of Jonathan Drouin-Nathan MacKinnon fame to the MasterCard Memorial Cup last May, waiting in the wings.

From Terry Koshan (@koshtorontosun):

Is it the wisest move? It is as long as Paterson's play bears out of the wisdom of coach Brent Sutter's decision. He does have an extra year of refining his game on Fucale, which might provide that extra 2 per cent as the WJC unfolds.

The tournament's demographics among forwards and defencemen are skewing younger yet, when Canada has won in the last decade, it has done so with a 19-year-old in the cord cottage. Correlation does not imply causation, though, so there's room for a counter-point that this is just confirmation bias. Team Canada gives a lot of weight to the experience factor, then doesn't stray from it.

On the whole, both Fucale and Paterson came into camp dotted with far fewer question marks than the last three Team Canada goalie tandems, Malcolm Subban-Jordan Binnington in 2013, Mark Visentin-Scott Wedgewood in '12 and Olivier Roy-Visentin in '11. The top end of the goalie talent pool in Canada, among the cohort who are currently 17 to 19, is a bit stronger than it was among previous crops, although that doesn't necessarily make it world-beating.

The other bit of news out of Canada's practice is that captain Mathew Dumba did not practice due to flu.

He's not the only key player ailing; Montreal Canadiens second-rounder Sebastian Collberg left Sweden's game on Wednesday due to illness.

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.