Hage Looking Great In Pre-Tournament Action

During the two pre-tournament matchups against Sweden, he has primarily played with Nashville Predators’ 2025 1st round pick Brady Martin and either Tij Iginla or Gavin McKenna, as Hage is slotted to play on Team Canada’s 2nd line as a centre to start the tournament. Hage was originally in line to get a 1st-line role before the San Jose Sharks lent out Michael Misa to Canada for the tournament. Despite this, Hage is in a great position by having Martin and one of McKenna or Iginla as his linemates for the tournament. According to TSN’s Mark Masters, Hage was on a line with Martin once again and the potential 1st overall pick in the upcoming draft, Gavin McKenna, at practice earlier on Monday.

On top of practicing on Canada’s 2nd line, Hage was also placed on Canada’s top power play unit, alongside McKenna, Martin, Cole Reschny, and Zayne Parekh. However, the reality is the talent on both power play units is very similar, with Misa, Hunter Brunicke, Porter Martone, Tij Iginla, and Jett Luchanko making up the other unit.

The Canadian centre has shown that he is able to drive play even while playing with the country’s biggest stars in his age group. This already bodes well for his potential NHL career as a 2nd line centre, as he’s currently showing that he can be a play driver with potentially better players than himself. It’s possible that being able to play well with McKenna could eventually also translate to being able to fit well alongside a potential superstar like Ivan Demidov on the Habs.

The fact is McKenna is also a potential superstar, and getting to play a lot with him during the World Juniors can be a sort of early audition for Hage to see how he plays with a superstar. Now, Hage is no slouch himself, but he doesn’t have the potential to be a superstar at the NHL like both McKenna and Demidov do. Nonetheless, he could be a star that complements that type of player very well.

It will be interesting to see just how good Hage does in his first ever tournament representing Canada, but it definitely seems like he’s being given everything he needs to succeed in his role on the team. We as Habs fans will get to watch a lot of Hage during the Christmas holidays as the tournament will kick off in Minnesota as Canada takes on Czechia at 8:30 pm ET in their first game on Friday.

Are you excited to watch Hage and Team Canada at the World Juniors?