Harrison Brunicke has been named to Team Canada’s training camp roster.
Brunicke has spent the last two
weeks on a conditioning loan with Wilkes-Barre of the AHL. The 19-year old has not played an NHL game since November 3rd.
World Juniors runs from December 26th through January 5th, Brunicke has still not appeared in his 10th NHL game which would begin his NHL contract tolling. If and when he would get to 40 games of being on the NHL roster, he earns a year of credit towards unrestricted free agency – which he could reach by age 26 instead of the standard 27 should he remain in the NHL for subsequent years.
Brunicke won’t be the only NHL player going to World Juniors, Calgary has released their prize 19-year old right handed defender Zayne Parekh and San Jose is sending 18-year old forward Michael Misa to play for the Canadians as well.
One name not on the roster is Ben Kindel, a player where there were social media rumors that would be going to World Junior. Kindel, who is on the Pens’ top power play, doesn’t seem like a strong candidate for Pittsburgh to send out of the NHL, though they still do have time to reverse course and work out that designation if that situation develops further. It was reported that Canada was wanting and hoping Kindel would be available for use in this tournament, but at this point it looks like all they are going to get out of the Pens is Brunicke.
This announcement solves what should be happening for Brunicke over the next month or so, GM Kyle Dubas had previously talked on his podcast back in November about the developmental plan that Pittsburgh is using for their teenaged defensemen who technically must be assigned back to his junior hockey league team if he is not on the NHL roster. So far the Pens have taken steps to avoid that, playing in the World Junior being the latest step to get him action against the best of his age group on a temporary basis before seeing how that goes to determine the next steps.
