World Juniors Update: Trevor Zegras dominates with 10 points in 3 games
The excitement amongst Ducks fans for the arrival of top prospect Trevor Zegras has officially hit overdrive.
Through just three games in this year’s World Junior Championship tournament in Edmonton, Alberta, the 19-year-old has an astounding 10 points (5G + 5A). Zegras now has 14 assists in his World Junior career between last year and this year, tying the legendary Hall Of Famer Doug Weight for second in most assists for the United States.
Zegras began last year’s tournament on the fourth line, yet still led the US in points with nine assists. The US coaching staff was heavily criticized for this deployment, and it appears they learned their lesson with Zegras on the left wing of the top line alongside LA Kings prospects Alex Turcotte and Arthur Kaliyev as well as running the half-wall on the first power play unit.
Zegras is well-known as a pass-first player in the same vein as Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf. However, it appears he has listened to his coaches begging him to shoot more, currently leading the tournament in goals.
With NHL training camps about to begin and the Ducks season commencing on a January 14th, the World Juniors are serving as a pre-training camp for Zegras. Given his dominance so far, it’s hard to believe that he won’t be given a six game stint (down from the usual nine game ELC slide limit for this shortened season) in the NHL to begin the year. And with General Manager Bob Murray publicly declaring his team to be in win-now mode, we may be watching Zegras force his hand to burn the first year off his entry contract.
He still needs to prove himself at the NHL level, which is a significant step up in competition from the World Juniors, but Zegras is giving Ducks management the challenge to give him a shot at making his NHL debut and sticking at just 19 years old.