Team Canada announced their roster for the World Juniors and unsurprisingly Pierre-Luc Dubois was named to the team.
Dubois entered camp as a lock to make the team after almost making it as a 17 year old last season. The Blue Jackets third overall pick will be expected to fill a big offensive role. He is slated to start on the second line left wing, and should be on the top power play.
Dubois was one of the last cuts by the Blue Jackets in training camp, but has severely struggled since being reassigned to the QMJHL. He has just 18 points in 20 games which is nowhere near where he should be. Most CHL top picks tend to hover around two points per game.
I've seen Dubois play a few games this season and he's looked good. This isn’t a situation where his skills have deteriorated. He’s the same player he's always been. What looks be happening is he is suffering from some poor shooting luck. Dubois is currently shooting 8.8%, the lowest in his three years in the Q, a steep drop from the 17.8% he shot last season.
The good news is this just appears to be some bad luck. Dubois is averaging 3.4 shots per game down just slightly from the 3.81 he averaged last season. He is still managing to get pucks on net. He is also still getting to the high scoring areas of the ice. Last season Dubois took 170 dangerous shots, averaging 2.74 per game, which were fourth in the Q. This season he is down, but again only slightly, averaging 2.2 per game.
There are situational factors in play here as well. Dubois has been a full time centre this year so that could certainly be weighing him down. Cape Breton has not been as strong of a team as last year. They lost two thirds of their top line in Maxim Lazarev and Evgeny Svechnikov. They played alongside Dubois last season and really helped him. They were the two best wingers on the team and really helped Dubois as he transitioned to centre. This year he doesn’t have that same luxury which could explain the down start offensively.
Regardless of what went wrong in Cape Breton, it doesn’t matter anymore as once the World Juniors are over Dubois is going to have a fresh start. He has been traded to the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, currently the second best team in the QMJHL. They are a not an offensive team relying heavily on their goalie Samuel Montembeault. Dubois is still not going to have the luxury of gifted offensive wingers, but he is such a smart talented player in his own right that he should be able to figure it out.
Dubois has the chance to restart his season and put everything else behind him. Hopefully he can play well at the World Juniors and that can jump start him into a strong second half and ideally a long playoff run. He is way too good of a player to be struggling like this.
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