When the Canadian roster for the 2024 World Junior Championship was announced earlier this month, there were a lot of questions surrounding the team’s three goalies. It’s not that the trio of Scott Ratzlaff, Mathis Rousseau, and Samuel St-Hilaire were bad choices, but none of them were seen as bona fide starting goalies. This was hardly a new conversation for Team Canada, however, as the team hasn’t had a guaranteed starter heading into the tournament for several years. Three pre-tournament games were sure to sort out who would be starting against Finland on Dec. 26.
Unfortunately, those three games didn’t clear anything up and may have made the field even muddier. Although there were some strong overall performances, no goalie stood out during pre-tournament play, leaving Canada without any clear answers. So, if no one earned the spot, who should it go to? All three goalies have a valid claim to the job, but only one can lead the team onto the ice in Gothenburg.
The Case for Ratzlaff
Ratzlaff entered the tournament as the expected starter, and for good reason. At the 2023 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, he went undefeated in four games and put up an astounding .976 save percentage (SV%) and a 0.50 goals-against average (GAA). The next best goalie to start more than one game at the tournament was Finland’s Eemil Vinni, who finished with a .927 SV% after four games. It’s no wonder that Canada came away with the gold medal.
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On top of his international success, Ratzlaff is the only drafted goalie on Canada’s roster. Following a strong 2022-23 season with the Western Hockey League’s (WHL) Seattle Thunderbirds, in which he posted a .918 SV%, five shutouts, and 25 wins in 34 starts, the Buffalo Sabres selected him in the fifth round of the 2023 Draft. Since then, he’s been compared to fellow Sabres’ prospect Devon Levi not only for his size and current NHL team, but also for their similar approach to the game. Both goalies are very studious in their approach, watching and studying other goalies in order to become better themselves. Ratzlaff had the perfect mentor in Seattle with former World Junior star Thomas Milic, which forced each to earn every start they got and prepared them for success wherever they went.
The only problem is that, if Ratzlaff is chosen as the starter, he’ll be coming into the tournament cold. He…
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