USA Hockey released its preliminary roster for the 2018 World Juniors on Wednesday, and it appears a Blackhawks prospect is being robbed of a spot for the second straight year. This time, it’s defenseman Chad Krys who missed the cut despite being one of the top sophomore blue liners in college hockey this season.
Apparently this isn’t a popular decision around the hockey world.
Pretty respected NHL scout texted me this after I tweeted about Chad Krys yesterday. Just wanted to circle back on the fact this kid got screweddddddd pic.twitter.com/SYsDwBAkjy
— Mike Grinnell (@MikeGrinnell_) December 6, 2017
A year ago, Team USA left another top Blackhawks prospect in Alex DeBrincat off its gold medal-winning roster. The move was a bit puzzling at the time, and while the Americans were vindicated by their victory in Montreal, DeBrincat is proving this season in Chicago that he deserved to be a part of that team.
Now Krys, the Blackhawks’ other second-round pick in 2016, also also been left off despite emerging as one of the organization’s top prospects. He’s off to a huge start to his sophomore season at Boston University with 14 points in 17 games, already surpassing the 11 points in 39 games he recorded as a freshman.
Apparently that wasn’t enough to convince USA Hockey management to put him in the WJC, though, so we’ll just have to wait until he proves everyone wrong in the near future just like DeBrincat.