World junior championship aspirations? Kaput. But that doesn’t mean Sean Monahan is done thinking about international hockey.

“Any Canadian kid wants to play for Canada at some point,” Monahan said Wednesday morning. “Obviously, that’s my goal — to, sometime in my career, make the Olympic team.”

The Calgary Flames had announced the day before that Monahan, 19, would not attend the world junior tourney. The rookie centre can live with that — especially since it’s an indicator that his employers require his services, now.

“It’s a good feeling,” said Monahan. “For them to want to keep me here, that gives me a little bit of confidence. But, obviously, it would have been an honour to wear the Canadian jersey . . . but I’m happy with what happened. I’m willing to do whatever this organization wants me to do.”

Monahan owns nine goals — only Michael Cammalleri has more for the Flames — and he has been a top-nine fixture since Day 1. Average ice time, 16:08.

“I’m playing quite a bit of minutes here and playing in different situations,” he said. “I’m just trying to get better and do whatever I can to help this team win games.”

Meanwhile, the six-foot-two, 200-pounder is not playing for anybody these days.

A broken foot — sustained in practice two weeks ago — keeps Monahan on the sideline. He did skate briefly Wednesday morning.

“My foot’s getting a lot better,” said Monahan. “It’s almost 100 times better than it was. When it feels like I’m ready to perform at my best again, I’ll be back out there.”

REINHART IMPRESSES

David Jones, during off-season skating sessions in Vancouver, had taken note of one participant — Sam Reinhart.

So, checking Canada’s roster for the world junior championship, the Flames winger was familiar with one player.

“I had been asking who he was (during the summer) and they were saying that he’s really highly touted,” Jones said of Reinhart, 18, centre of the Kootenay Ice. “You could see the way he saw the game. For his age, it was pretty impressive. You could see that vision to put the puck in the net.

“So it was cool to see him on the world-junior (roster). I’m looking forward to watching him.”

Reinhart, according to Jones, is part of the new wave of young hotshots.

“It’s crazy how good they are at handling the puck,” he said. “When I came in . . . skating was everything. Just fast and big. Now you see more of these skilled guys coming in that don’t necessarily need to be six-foot-two and skate 100 miles an hour.”

GILLIES BACK

Flames prospect G Jon Gillies, to no one’s surprise, is on the Americans’ preliminary roster for the world junior tourney. Hockey East’s goalie of the month again, the Providence sophomore is 10-1-2, 1.81 GAA, .945 . . . Former Flames draft pick C Mitch Wahl, 23, is the ECHL’s player of the month.

scruickshank@calgaryherald.com