from Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star,

It begins. The single most important tournament for NHL scouts. The world junior hockey championship.

Scouts from all 30 NHL teams have descended upon Ufa, Russia, site of this year’s tournament, to begin picking apart the games of the world’s best teenaged hockey players to see how they do against each other.

“It’s the one tournament where you cover both amateur and pro,” said Leafs assistant GM Dave Nonis. “For that reason, it’s probably the most important tournament of the year.”

The Leafs will have had up to six front-office types and scouts attend the tournament or the pretournament camps. Some teams are going with smaller contingents. All are formulating plans for the draft while starting to get a book ready on the players already drafted.

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