The IIHF World Junior Ice Hockey Championships deliver exciting hockey on a pretty much annual basis. But not every year is a year for deep investment by fans of the Vancouver Canucks.
The Canucks’ prospect cupboard recently went through a bit of a dry spell, and that often led to Vancouver property either not featuring at the WJC, or featuring in very minor roles.
Other times, it was worse, like when a certain unmentionable prospect was sent back to ‘star’ for Team Canada and wound up earning the ire of the entire country with selfish play and ill-timed penalties.
But not this year. With the 2025 WJCs, supporters of the Vancouver Canucks have plenty to cheer for.
Sawyer Mynio will be the first Canuck to suit up for Team Canada since Mikey DiPietro went 2-2-0 in 2019. Meanwhile, over on Team Switzerland, last year’s seventh round pick Basile Sansonnens will play for his national team.
But by far the most Canuck-related attention will be paid to Team Sweden, where top prospect Tom Willander will be minding the blueline for the Tre Kronor.
Willander is the most significant for a number of reasons. He’s far and away the Canucks’ best prospect, and is simply put one of the top RHD prospects in the entire world. As such, while he’s not exactly next-in-line for an NHL appearance, Willander is considered the prospect that will make the largest and longest-lasting impact on the Vancouver lineup.
He’s considered a part of the picture, even when that picture involves the Canucks being competitive over the next couple of seasons. In so many ways, he’s one of the single most important individuals in the entire organization.
So, yeah, Willander is going to have some eyes and some hopes riding on him over in Ottawa.
And the big question on every Canucks fans mind as they watch will no doubt be some variation on “How soon will this guy be ready for big league minutes?”
The answer might be…sooner than you think. The reason for it has little to do with the WJC itself, and more to do with where Willander is coming to the WJC from, namely Boston University.
It won’t come as news to anyone that BU hosts a terrific hockey program with a storied history. Just having Willander attend this institution and move through its ranks, alone, greatly increases his chances of one day becoming an impactful NHL player.
But BU has specifically developed a reputation of late of sending its top defensive prospects to the big leagues both early and ready for a major role right off the bat.
The most recent and obvious example of this is Lane Hutson. Last season, Hutson was Willander’s teammate in Boston. He put up 49 points in 38 games as an NCAA sophomore, and then he signed with the Montreal Canadiens, notching two assists in his first two NHL games.
Hutson definitely kept that roll going into 2024/25, his proper rookie campaign. As of this writing, he’s up to 26 points in 34 games and recently passed fellow BU alum Macklin Celebrini for second place in rookie scoring.
Hutson hasn’t just been a success, he’s been an immediate success, bordering on a revelation. And he’s not the only BU defensive prospect to arrive in similar fashion over the past decade.
The trend began showing really strongly as of the 2016/17 season, in which BU hand-delivered two NHL-ready D from its roster directly to that of the Boston Bruins, just down the road.
The first to go from BU to BrUin was Matt Grzelcyk. After four seasons at BU, ending with the 2015/16 season, Grzelcyk was delivered to the Bruins in essentially an NHL-ready format. Due to the still-considerable depth of the Boston organization, he only wound up getting into two NHL games in 2016/17, but that was through no fault of his own. Grzelcyk was ready, and by next year more space would be cleared out for him, and he’d start skating regular minutes right away.
The second, but far more prominent, was Charlie McAvoy. He was drafted at 14th overall in 2016 after his freshman season at BU alongside Grzelcyk, then spent the next year back there as a sophomore for 2016/17.
Then he stepped not just into the NHL, but into the NHL playoffs. After a brief audition in the AHL, McAvoy was called up to the Big Bruins and wound up suiting up for six postseason games for them that year.
By 2017/18, he was a full-time NHLer and ready to take the reins from Zdeno Chara as the Bruins’ top defender.
The jump was exactly what Canucks fans are hoping Willander is able to achieve. Two seasons in the NCAA, then straight to an NHL top-four.
There are more encouraging examples to be found, and they don’t even involve the Boston Bruins. McAvoy’s last season at BU in 2016/17 marked the arrival of Dante Fabbro, who had just been drafted 17th overall by the Nashville Predators.
Fabbro spent three seasons with the Terriers before signing with Nashville at the end of the 2018/19 campaign, leaping straight into four regular season games and then six playoff games thereafter.
Now, Fabbro hasn’t had quite the rise to NHL stardom that his former teammate, McAvoy, enjoyed. His development has been a bit up-and-down, to the point that he was placed on waivers and claimed by Columbus earlier this season.
But it bears mentioning that Fabbro has still yet to play even a single game in the AHL. He arrived in the big leagues, if not ready for stardom, then at the very least ready to play in and stay in the NHL. Again, BU offers that ‘right out of the box’ appeal.
The last player we’ll talk about, and the second-most recent after Hutson, is Alex Vlasic. He was quite as heralded as McAvoy or Fabbro, and joined BU in 2019/20 after being drafted at 43rd overall by the Chicago Blackhawks. But his rise to greatness was pretty quick after that.
Vlasic played three seasons with BU, then joined the Blackhawks early enough in the 2021/22 season to play in 15 regular season games for them.
The next year, 2022/23, saw Vlasic split his time between Chicago and Rockford, but that was as much to shield him from the disaster happening at the NHL level than his own readiness. By 2023/24, he was not just a full-time defender, but already probably the Blackhawk’s best overall. Those with an ear to the ground no doubt heard Vlasic getting some surprise buzz for Team USA’s entry into the 4 Nations Faceoff. That’s how good he’s gotten, and how quickly. Which might be surprising…if not for the trend we’ve established here of high-profile BU defenders graduating straight from their program to NHL readiness.
It must be said that the past is not always precedent, and that hockey prospects are, by their nature, very much individuals and each on their own unique developmental path. Just because Grzelcyk, McAvoy, Fabbro, Vlasic, and now Hutson were able to step right out of the NCAA and into the NHL doesn’t guarantee that Willander will be able to when his time comes.
But it certainly ups his odds. And that means that when Canucks fans tune in to this year’s WJC to see Willander, they might just see someone who looks to be ready for primetime sooner rather than later.
And who wouldn’t want to see that?
