Ryan Murray will have to wait a year

Published 9:06 am Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Everett defenseman Ryan Murray was among the final cuts from Canada’s selection camp for the World Junior Hockey Championships this morning.

Reports indicated the 17-year-old Murray, the youngest player invited to camp, played well enough during camp to warrant one of the seven defensive roster spots. However, based on the cuts as a whole, it seems Hockey Canada decided to go with the experienced option this year.

Whenever Hockey Canada makes its cuts for World Juniors, the players are brought into the coaches room first thing in the morning, told their cut, then thrust out in front of the television cameras for their reaction. If you want to see Murray’s reaction, click on the “A Tough Day” video on the right of the link above. I can’t imagine going through that is a lot of fun.

This is no tragedy for Murray, however. It’s pretty rare that 17-year-olds make Canada’s team for World Juniors, and Murray will have two more chances. You’ve got to think he’ll be a lock to make next year’s team, and then he’ll be a candidate to captain the team in 2013 — unless he’s already skating a regular shift in the NHL by then.

It’s also no tragedy for the Tips. Murray is a vital player for Everett, and now the Tips won’t be losing him for a large chunk of games. This is particularly important given the Tips are likely to lose fellow d-men Rasmus Rissanen (Finland) and Nick Walters (U-17s) for the first few games following the Christmas break. Whether he’ll be back in time to play tonight was yet to be determined. But in December of 2007 when Zach Hamill and Leland Irving were part of Canada’s final cuts, they were cut in the morning, flew back to Everett and were in the lineup that night. So it could be that Murray ends up missing just one game.