There came a point, maybe after his second goal of the game, where Jake Virtanen not only put on the best performance by any member of the junior team vying for a spot on Team Canada, but he had already nailed down the best nickname: Showtime.

Indeed Virtanen, a prospect with the Calgary Hitmen drafted by the Vancouver Canucks, put on a show over the weekend, skating off with two goals and four assists in a pair of romps over university players from Toronto, York and Ryerson over the weekend.

“We’re just trying to find chemistry,” said Virtanen, who played the right wing with Nick Paul at centre and Remi Elie at left. “If you’re going to come here, there’s going to be great players and you’ve got to use them and use your teammates well and it’ll work out in itself.”

On a day that featured the first cuts — five were sent home Sunday — Virtanen wasn’t just among those that survived. He thrived.

“It’s always my dream for me to play on the world-junior team,” said Virtanen. “You look a couple years back when they were winning gold and I know all Canada was happy and I was happy. The goal is definitely to get back on track and get the gold medal here … I definitely want to be a part of that.”

Six points in six periods is a pretty good pace and Virtanen, remember, won’t even be the go-to option when Team Canada kicks off the world junior tournament against Slovakia on Dec. 26. That honour will go, most likely, to the likes Connor McDavid, Sam Reinhart, Nic Petan and Anthony Duclair.

The high-end talent didn’t play in either game and probably won’t see action until Friday in an exhibition game at the Air Canada Centre against Russia. (McDavid will probably miss that game, more like Dec. 21 in Ottawa.)

“You look at the roster and there’s some pretty big names and guys that have done really well for themselves in the past,” said Virtanen. “I think just coming into this camp it’s just showing yourself and playing well.

“I think so far as a team we played well and personally I think I’ve done pretty well. I think just showing my 200-foot game and just trying to be a good player all around the ice is what I’ve been trying to do.”

The 22 players who skated over the weekend were simply trying to make it to Monday when the team heads to St. Catharines to continue camp. Cut on Sunday were: Elie, a Dallas Stars prospect with the Belleville Bulls; forward Morgan Klimchuk, a Flames prospect with the Calgary Hitmen; forward Nick Baptiste, a Sabres prospect with the Erie Otters; defenceman Chris Bigras, an Avs prospect with Owen Sound; defenceman Travis Sanheim, a Flyers prospect with the Hitmen.

Like always, the cut players met with the coaching staff, then were paraded to the media before being escorted to the airport by Hockey Canada staff — excised from the team in a matter of minutes.

“It’s always difficult,” said head coach Benoit Groulx. “It’s a tough part of the job, I guess, to release players. Our goal is to build a team, and within that we had to make those decisions.”

If there was a surprise in the cuts, it was Bigras, who was one of seven players who was on last year’s team.

“Obviously, not the outcome I was looking for,” said Bigras, whose departure was perhaps the most emotional. “Can’t dwell on it right now.”

Baptiste, however, summed up the experience.

“Being released is tough,” he said. “It’s not the end of the world. It sucks. But that’s life. These things happen. You just have to move forward.”

So that is what Groulx and company will do. Move forward to open the next segment of camp in St. Catharines with 25 players — 15 forwards, eight defencemen and two goalies. The team has until the eve of the tournament to get down to 22 players. There is still a chance that the Vancouver Canucks could release Bo Horvat and the Ottawa Senators could release Curtis Lazar, a pair of forwards.

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“We want to keep building this team,” said Groulx. “We played two games and I think we made a step forward with these two games. Now we’ve got to keep going.

“That was one step in our training camp. Now we’re moving to another level: one week of preparation in Niagara. We’re going to have to keep working, putting the system in place, working at our lines, duos on defence, specialty team, all that. We’ve got to have a good week of work in front of us.”