Former University of Maine All-Hockey East second team winger Bradly Nadeau dished out two assists for Canada’s World Juniors hockey team in a 7-1 exhibition victory over Switzerland in Ottawa on Thursday night.
The Canadians open pool play in the World Junior Hockey tournament on Thursday, Dec. 26 against Finland in Ottawa.
The 10-team tournament for players under age 20 runs until Jan. 5.
The 10 teams are broken up into two, five-team groups and teams play everyone in their group once.
After pool play, there are single-elimination crossover quarterfinal matchups with the first-place team in the A group taking on the fourth-place finisher in the B group; No. 2 in A facing No. 3 in B and so on.
Canada is in group A with Finland, the United States, Germany and Latvia. Group B consists of Czechia, Kazakhstan, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland.
Nadeau has been playing for the Chicago Wolves, the American Hockey League affiliate of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes.
Nadeau is Chicago’s second-leading scorer with 15 points on six goals and nine assists in 22 games.
He is in a five-way tie for first in goals.
Nadeau has three goals and seven assists for 10 points over his last 10 games and a goal and five assists in his last five contests.
Nadeau is the only player on Canada’s 25-man roster who is a former or current U.S. college player. The other 24 are currently playing in or have played in one of Canada’s three Major Junior leagues: the Western Hockey League, the Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League.
After playing Finland on Dec. 26, the Canadians will face Latvia on Dec. 27, Germany on Dec. 29 and the defending gold medal-winning USA Team on Dec. 31.
The quarterfinals will be on Jan. 2, the semifinals will be on Jan. 4 and the bronze and gold medal games will be on Jan. 5.
The 19-year-old Nadeau led UMaine in scoring a year ago with 46 points on 19 goals and 27 assists in 37 games. He had four game-winning goals and three power play goals and he was also tops on the team in plus-minus at plus-20.
A player receives a plus-one if he is on the ice when his team scores an even-strength or shorthanded goal and a minus-one if the opponent scores one.
Nadeau, who was also chosen to the Hockey East All-Rookie team, was a first round draft choice of the Hurricanes in 2023. He was the 30th overall pick.
The USA team is coached by Denver coach Dave Carle, who guided the Pioneers to the national championship last season after piloting Team USA to the gold medal in the World Junior tournament.
The Pioneers will be playing the University of Maine on Jan. 3-4 in Orono so Carle would miss the UMaine series if Team USA reaches the semifinals. So would Denver All-American defenseman Zeev Buium, who is playing for Team USA.
Buium was the National Collegiate Hockey Conference’s Rookie of the Year and Offensive Defenseman of the Year last season as well as a first team All-NCHC selection.
