Daily Faceoff Live: Ellis’ omissions from Team Canada & USA camps

Daily Faceoff prospect analyst Steven Ellis joined Frank Seravalli on Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live to discuss the recent omissions from Team Canada and Team USA’s preliminary rosters for the upcoming IIHF World Junior tournament. 

Frank Seravalli: As we dive into this week’s edition of ‘The Next Wave’ presented by our friends at DoorDash. We got a sense, with camp rosters being released, of what these rosters might look like. When you take a look at the roster released by Team Canada earlier this week who were some of the surprise omissions? 

Steven Ellis: Well one player that a lot of people pointed out right off the bat was Matt Savoie, who I had on my projected roster but also knowing he is not a huge player by any means and that if he wasn’t going to make the top-nine there were other guys who fit the role better deeper in the lineup. He’s put up some really good numbers this year and I was really impressed with him at the Buffalo rookie showcase with the Sabres. I think he is going to have a good future, he will be a huge part of next year’s team. This was a guy who was a top-three prospect kind of heading into last year — then it didn’t work out that way. I think he’s going to be a game-changer at the NHL level, he’s that skilled. I understand they (Team Canada) have a lot of scoring players and they didn’t necessarily need him.

Denton Mateychuk is a defenseman who has been a fantastic player this year. It’s been a lot of fun watching Blue Jackets prospects and he’s one of them. He’s playing as well as he is offensively, probably could’ve played any role that Canada needed. And then the last one is Jagger Firkus, a Seattle Kraken prospect. He’s been one of the most electric, the most fun players to watch. He’s put up a lot of goals this year and his two-way game has taken a step forward, he’s a more well-rounded prospect than he was when I was hyping him up. Again, there’s just so much skill on this team and they need to have some role guys which is why these guys fell out of favor. 

Frank Seravalli: Let’s talk about the other side of the border, Team USA. Their initial list was also released this week. Steven, who were some of the surprise omissions from that group and were there bigger surprises than Team Canada? 

Steven Ellis: For sure. Team USA left off two of the top-scoring players in the OHL which you then look at it and say “well obviously they like to pick the NCAA and USHL players” but, leaving Ty Voit off who has been as good as he has been — nearly 2.00 points per game since the hop of the season, that’s a guy I don’t understand how you leave him off.

Then, Sasha Pastujov, was on the summer team, just a few months ago. He played for the U.S. National Development Program and sure he didn’t go to the NCAA route but he was a pretty good player in the summer, one of their top scorers. So, leaving him off, where he has 18 goals this year and is third or fourth in OHL goal scoring. Those are two really key guys to leave off because they don’t have the scoring depth that Team Canada has. Like Canada might not bring in Jordan Dumais who is on pace for like 140 points in the QMJHL, they can leave guys off because they have that depth, but Team USA does not. Logan Cooley is a great player but he is not a Connor Bedard or a Shane Wright if he’s there. You’d think they’d want guys who could put up points and leave those two guys off but bringing in a guy like Tyler Boucher, who is also in the OHL but, hasn’t put up a lot of points just seems so odd when you leave off a player like Ty Voit and how well he is playing. 

You can watch the full episode here…