Team Canada captain Curtis Lazar said teammate Max Domi is "electrifying. "
The world is pretty much divided between talkers and listeners, there can be no argument as to which camp should claim Curtis Lazar.
The Ottawa Senators prospect, who is taking a pause from the NHL to wear the captain's 'C' for Team Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championship, is a sunny, outgoing sort whose game revolves around hard graft more than skill.
Mostly, though, he jokes, needles and cajoles. It turns out small talk is an under-rated hockey attribute.
It's probably not a stretch to say Lazar's principal task in this year's tournament is to fill the silences that might lead to contemplation, analysis and ultimately self-doubt.
"I take a different approach with every person. Some guys like being talked to, others just kind of like being left alone," the 19-year-old native of Salmon Arm, B.C. said Sunday. "So that's kind of tough for me to manage that, especially in a short-term competition, just try to get in there a little bit talk to guys, keep them loose."
It's no accident Lazar rooms with 17-year-old forward Connor McDavid, by the former's admission the pair were up late on Saturday dissecting a 4-0 win over the Germans – a breakout game for the latter.
"I'm happy for Connor, just to get that weight off his shoulders, to make an impact like he did, we're going to need that going forward," said Lazar, who turns 20 next month.
Canadian coach Benoit Groulx put it succinctly this past weekend after McDavid's three-point performance: "there's a lot of pressure on these young guys," and opined that his prodigy darkened the score sheet because "he wasn't thinking … he was just playing."
Managing and deflecting the strain of a short competition – even one like this where there is an obvious and wide disparity in the quality of the opposition – comes more easily to some than others. Lazar takes the voluble approach while others tend toward the taciturn; McDavid, for example.
"When guys try to crack him up, he's pretty serious," said forward Jake Virtanen, a Vancouver Canucks prospect who began the tournament shuttling between the third and fourth lines but spent much of the third period against Germany playing with McDavid.
Building tournament teams is as much an operation in finding compatible personalities as it is covering the tactical bases, which brings us to another 19-year-old who is well-equipped to handle the pressure: forward Max Domi.
One look at the live-wire London Knights forward betrays his hockey lineage – he has his father Tie's considerable pumpkin – the sight of him dominating the opposition in the offensive zone highlights his importance to this team.
For all the attention lavished on McDavid – which, it should be said, doesn't seem to intimidate him in the slightest – Domi and returning forward Nic Petan have been Canada's most dangerous forwards.
Petan leads the tournament in scoring; Domi may lead it in did-you-see-that plays.
Left off the team a year ago, Domi has taken the world junior stage and owned it.
He insists last season's snub is behind him; his play alongside Sam Reinhart and Anthony Duclair suggests otherwise.
Against the Slovaks in the opening game, Domi made a play that raised eyebrows because it ran counter to the perceived wisdom about his talents: he backchecked furiously to thwart an odd-man rush, then roared back up the ice to score on a peach of a wrist shot.
In the Germany game he made a more typical Domi play, sliding a pass to Reinhart from behind the net and then tapping his astute return pass into an open net to effectively kill off the game ("Christmas came a couple of days late for me," Domi said).
He celebrated, as is his wont, by sticking out his tongue.
"A crazy kid," Lazar said of his teammate. "He's electrifying, is what he is."
"Electrifying," Domi said, chuckling. "I don't know about that. I am just trying to work hard in the team system and help the boys win."
He's a little too modest.
Domi's offensive creativity is a key component of the top line on the team favoured to win it all (and snap a five-year gold-less string).
It might be tempting to find it curious that a player whose father became a Toronto Maple Leafs fan favourite thanks to his fists would have such evident skill.
Not every kid gets pointers from the likes of Mario Lemieux and Mats Sundin.
"I always overpassed when I was a kid in minor hockey, so (my dad) would jump all over me, and say, 'Fine, if you can't listen to Mario or Mats Sundin, then I don't know who else I can get to tell you.' I was like all right, I guess you're right, and I had to figure it out pretty quick," he said.
The next test for Domi and his teammates comes Monday against defending champion Finland.
Groulx has turned to Zachary Fucale in net – despite the fact Eric Comrie looked good shutting out the Germans on Saturday – as Canada hopes to avenge a one-sided 5-1 defeat against the Finns in the semi-finals of the tournament last year.
Finland pushed the United States to a shootout on Friday before losing to Slovakia on Saturday; no one in a Canadian shirt is taking the opposition lightly.
"They play hard and so do we," Domi said. "Match that and be ready to go."