LA Kings loan Brandt Clarke to Team Canadas National Junior Team

Last updated Dec 9, 2022 Edit Source

• News post

• Zach Dooley

The LA Kings and Hockey Canada announced today that the Kings have loaned defenseman Brandt Clarke to Team Canada to participate in selection camp for the 2023 World Junior Championships, which begin later this month North of the Border.

• Brandt Clarke

• Todd McLellan

# Todd McLellan

He’s got an unreal skill set, an offensive mind, very creative, almost an artist-like mentality when he’s on the ice. Like any young player, he has to know how to defend a little bit better, get stronger, but Mother Nature is going to help him with some of those things and he’s going to help himself by being around pros day in and day out. Watching how hard to practice, how hard they work, the attention to detail. He’s getting a real good tutorial on that from guys like Alex Edler and Drew Doughty right now. There’s probably learning ground than what he’s in.

Sometimes players get rushed and we don’t want to do that with [Brandt Clarke]. There’s the hockey part, and then there’s all of the strength and professional habits, practice habits, travel habits and teammate habits that are really important and you don’t always get that at the junior level when you play 38 minutes a night and you stay on the power play for two straight minutes. I’m not saying that’s happening with Clarkie, they’re a very well-run team [in Barrie], but that can happen in certain situations. Right now, we think that this is a real good spot for him and we’ll see where it goes.