#1 pick Juraj Slafkovsky pulls out of the World Junior Championship

Believe it or not but the World Junior Championships are just two weeks away.

The January tournament, of course, was cancelled after four... yes just four... cases of COVID-19 were uncovered days into the tournament. IIHF President Luc Tardiff made the executive decision to cancel the tournament and reschedule it for the summer and now we're just days away with the puck set to drop on Tuesday, August 9th.

2023 #1 projected pick Conor Bedard and 2021 1st overall pick Owen Power are all expected to participate in the tournament, but 2022 1st overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky has already confirmed that he will NOT be participating in the event.

From Slovak reporter Tomas Prokop:

"His main goal is play in NHL right away in October. He needs 6-8 weeks of summer practice. For this reason he will skip world junior championship in Edmonton. He will arrive to Montreal in the middle of August."

Tomas Prokop

Hard to blame the kid. 

After all, the World Juniors was to be a showcase for himself heading into the Draft. Now that he's been drafted and there's so much at stake with regards to his NHL career, it hardly seems worth it to compete at the World Juniors. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if other players, specifically Power and other high drafted NHLers, drop out also. Methinks this is going to be a terribly underwhelming WJC...