The tournament begins a month today.

With several NHL teams now officially eliminated from playoff contention the watch is on for World Championship invites.

The Vancouver Canucks were eliminated last night thanks to an overtime win from the Minnesota Wild and two of their top players have reportedly already rejected an invitation. Canucks insider Rick Dhaliwal reports that defenseman Quinn Hughes and goaltender Thatcher Demko have both turned down invites to play for USA, citing the need to spend time recovering from injuries.

Ditto for defenseman Charlie McAvoy, who will also sit out the Boston Bruins’ final 4 regular season games. He’ll take the offseason to rest and recover.

The tournament begins a month today, so there’s still plenty of time for USA’s roster to come together. Stay tuned.

Brock Boeser confirms that he’s done with the Vancouver Canucks© Zuma Press

Brock Boeser confirms that he’s done with the Vancouver Canucks

With several NHL teams now officially eliminated from playoff contention the watch is on for World Championship invites.

The Vancouver Canucks were eliminated last night thanks to an overtime win from the Minnesota Wild and two of their top players have reportedly already rejected an invitation. Canucks insider Rick Dhaliwal reports that defenseman Quinn Hughes and goaltender Thatcher Demko have both turned down invites to play for USA, citing the need to spend time recovering from injuries.

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Forge of Empires

What about Canucks sniper Brock Boeser?

No word yet on Boeser’s availability for Team USA, but it does appear that his time with the Canucks is drawing to a close.

Yesterday evening after the Canucks’ playoff hopes were officially dashed, Boeser was asked about his future with the team and if there was a possibility of signing a new contract?

“Honestly, it’s unlikely at this point,” Boeser said. “It sucks, it’s unfortunate. I’m just trying to play good hockey, and then I’ll worry about everything after that. We all know it’s been a roller coaster of a year. There’s been a lot of different things.”

“It hurts,” followed up Boeser, the team’s long-serving member. “We wanted to be in the playoffs again so bad. If you get in, you never know what can happen. We were playing some good hockey when we had everyone in the lineup, and then we ran into more injury problems. We’ve had the distractions this year and injuries throughout the lineup all year. Yeah, it’s been a rough year. But there’s no excuses; we didn’t win hockey games when we were supposed to.”

The 28 year old pending unrestricted free agent managed 25 goals and 49 points in 71 games for the Canucks this season and is just one year removed from a career high 40 goals and 73 points.

He’s coming off a three year deal that paid him $6.65 million annually and he’s set to become an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his NHL career. There are rumblings that there’s mutual interest between the Burnsville, MN native and his childhood team the Minnesota Wild.