As we hit the dog days of the summer in the NHL, the focus shifts to the future. The World Junior Summer Showcase takes center stage this week.
Top prospects around the league will be showing off their stuff as teams evaluate for the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship this winter.
Among those players is St. Louis Blues top prospect Justin Carbonneau.
Carbonneau, selected by the Blues with the 19th overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, will get a chance to prove that he belongs on Team Canada for World Juniors this year. He is coming off a fantastic season with the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada in which he scored 46 goals and added 43 assists for 89 points in 62 games.
The top prospect showed off his scoring ability last year, but he's a bit of a late bloomer. He isn't a player who has been representing his country throughout his teenage years like other prospects.
In fact, Carbonneau's appeareance at the Under-17 World Hockey Championships in the 2022-23 season for Team Canada White is his only one. He had just one assist in six games as a teenager.
Carbonneau will have quite the competition at this year's World Junior Summer Showcase for Team Canada. The consensus top overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, Gavin McKenna, headlines a strong group of forwards for Canada. Then there are a few older prospects like Berkly Catton as well as top-10 picks from this year's draft in Michael Misa, Jake O'Brien, and Porter Martone.
Still, it's great to see Carbonneau on the roster for the showcase with a chance to represent his country this winter.