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Ducks’ Lukas Dostal on World Championships: ‘Without a contract, I’m probably not going to go’

April 14, 2023

ANAHEIM — Ideally, Lukas Dostal would be playing games well into the spring at the World Championships, which are scheduled for May 12-28 and co-hosted by Riga, Latvia and Tampere, Finland.

The Ducks’ rookie goaltender has answered the call when asked to play internationally for his native Czech Republic at the junior level and made his World Championships debut in May last year for the national team, beating Great Britain, 5-1.

It is different a year later.

Dostal explained why earlier this week.

“I talked about it with (Ducks GM) Pat (Verbeek) a little bit and also with the national team,” Dostal said. “Obviously, I would like to go, but I don’t have a contract so far. I told the national team if we sorted it out somehow, then I’d like to go. But you don’t want to get hurt, if something happened.

“So without a contract, I’m probably not going to go.”

Fortunately, management with the national team knew where Dostal was coming from.

“The GM is Martin Havlat,” Dostal said of the former NHL forward, who played 14 seasons. “He told me he understood, has been in that situation so many times.”

Dostal, who will be coming out of his entry-level contract, is one of a handful of pending restricted free agents among the Ducks. Most prominent are the team’s two leading scorers, Trevor Zegras and Troy Terry. In an interview in March, Zegras cited the contract as a possible factor against playing in the Worlds, saying then: “With the contract stuff up in the air, I feel like that’s the first priority.”

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Ducks rookie Mason McTavish would be an obvious choice to represent Team Canada, but McTavish finished the season injured and did not play in the regular-season finale against the Kings on Thursday night at Honda Center because of an upper-body injury. It is understood that it is not a serious injury but perhaps the best thing for him at this point might be a prolonged break.

Even before the injury, McTavish noted that he had played a lot of hockey the last couple of years, speaking about the physical and mental toll.

Orange County Register

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Ducks’ Lukas Dostal on World Championships: ‘Without a contract, I’m probably not going to go’

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