Edmonton Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said Saturday he will attend Canada's selection camp for the World Junior Championship.

Nugent-Hopkins' participation was in doubt due to left shoulder discomfort he felt playing for Oklahoma City in the American Hockey League. Camp begins Monday.

Jake Patterson made 34 saves and the London Knights defeated the Niagara IceDogs, 5-2, on Friday night to extend their winning streak to 17 games in the Ontario Hockey League.

Paterson is No. 5 in NHL Central Scouting's preliminary rankings of North American goalies in the OHL eligible for the 2013 NHL Draft. He is 11-1-1 with a 2.11 goals-against average and .928 save percentage this season.

London's Bo Horvat, the No. 5 rated skater in the OHL, had a goal and an assist. He has 23 points (12 goals) in 32 games.

Hockey Canada announced Friday that forward Colton Sissons of the Kelowna Rockets in the Western Hockey League will be unable to attend Canada's selection camp next week for the World Junior Championship due to an upper-body injury.

Sissons will not be replaced on the roster, which now has a total of 36 invitees, including four goaltenders, 12 defensemen and 20 forwards. The 19-year-old Sissons was drafted by the Nashville Predators in the second round (No. 50 overall) of the NHL Draft last June. He had 10 goals and 27 points in 27 games for Kelowna in 2012-13.

Junior forward Connor Hurley of Edina High School in Minnesota on Wednesday announced that he would be continuing his career at the University of Notre Dame.

The 6-foot-1.25, 172-pound center, who was being courted by Minnesota, Wisconsin, Minnesota-Duluth and Michigan State, is considered one of the top draft-eligible scholastic skaters for the 2013 NHL Draft. Hurley earned a B rating on NHL Central Scouting's preliminary rankings for players participating in scholastic high school hockey in Minnesota.

"The academics [at Notre Dame] obviously was a big thing that matters in my family," Hurley told the Minnesota Hockey Hub website. "They've got a great team now and they are getting a lot of good recruits in for the years to come."

Hurley has struck for eight goals, including three game-winners, and 15 points in six games with Edina (6-0-0) this season. He also played two games for the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the United States Hockey League this season, producing three assists and a plus-1 rating.

Defenseman Ryan Pulock of the Western Hockey League's Brandon Wheat Kings has been cleared to return to the lineup following a six-game absence due to a facial injury.

According to Brandon general manager Kelly McCrimmon, Pulock, No. 3 on NHL Central Scouting's preliminary rankings for players in the WHL, will join his teammates for Friday's home game against the Spokane Chiefs. Pulock was injured after taking a puck to the face in a Nov. 16 game against the Kootenay Ice and has been wearing a full face shield in practice.

Despite missing some time, the 6-foot-0.5, 211-pound blueliner is fourth in scoring among WHL defensemen with 25 points, including nine goals, in 24 games. He also has a team-leading plus-14 rating.

Expect Canadian National Junior Team head coach Steve Spott to undergo his share of sleepless nights when he begins his evaluation of players at Hockey Canada's selection camp in Calgary next week.

Defenseman Ryan Murphy is one player who won't require much evaluation, however.

Murphy, chosen No. 12 by the Carolina Hurricanes at the 2011 NHL Draft, was one of 37 players (12 defensemen) invited to Hockey Canada's selection camp at the Markin MacPhail Centre at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Dec. 11-13.

Spott has coached Murphy the past four seasons with the Kitchener Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League. This year marks the third time Murphy finds himself in a position to represent his country at the World Junior Championship -- he was released prior to the final roster selection the previous two years.

In addition to top draft-eligible defenseman Seth Jones, one other standout prospect was invited to the U.S. National Junior Team selection camp at the New York Rangers' training facility in Greenburgh, N.Y., from Dec. 16-18.

Ryan Hartman, a 5-foot-11, 187-pound forward from West Dundee, Ill., is also on the radar of USA Hockey's coaching and managerial team -- and for good reason.

"I really liked his camp in Lake Placid [in August]," U.S. National Team coach Phil Housley said. "He's the kind of guy who plays at both ends of the rink, can skate, and can change the momentum of a game with a big hit."

Three weeks from Wednesday, the first puck will drop to start the 2013 IIHF World Junior Championship in Ufa, Russia.

NHL.com already has started covering the event, which runs Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 in Ufa, Russia, with the publication of a number of stories, starting with the selection camp rosters for a number of the leading hockey nations, with more to come.

Canada's selection camp will be held Dec. 11-13 at the Canada Olympic Center in Calgary, while the U.S. selection camp will be held Dec. 14-16 in Greenburgh, N.Y., at the New York Rangers' training facility.

Check this blog often as NHL.com will have full coverage leading into the tournament all the way to the gold-medal game.

NHL Network-US is the home of the 2013 IIHF World Junior Championship with coverage of more than 15 games as well as highlights and analysis.

Seth Jones is a defenseman for the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League. The 6-foot-4, 205-pound defenseman has solid athletic bloodlines -- his father, Popeye Jones, played 11 seasons in the NBA. Jones excelled the last two seasons for the U.S. National Team Development Program and likely will play for the U.S. at the 2013 World Junior Championship. Jones has offered to maintain a monthly blog for NHL.com that will chronicle his season leading up to the 2013 NHL Draft.

It has been an exciting past couple of months for me and the team. We have been extremely successful as a team and the chemistry with each other is really coming alive. We hope to keep the flow going through the rest of the year.

The first part of November saw us run our win streak to 12 games. We have had some close one-goal games and some blowout games as well. Either way, the team gets ready for each game the same. Everybody is calm and relaxed while we play soccer. We are cracking jokes and not thinking about the game too much. You can feel the energy rise the closer you get to game time. We ended up losing to Kamloops, one of our conference rivals, at home on Nov. 16, which snapped our streak.

We let the loss sink in that night, but that did not stop us from winning games. We haven't lost since then -- we've won six straight. December will be a big month for us to end the first half of the season on a high note.

It's been a rough season so far for the Regina Pats, but top 2013 NHL Draft prospect Morgan Klimchuk has been doing his best to keep things positive.

The 5-foot-11.5, 180-pound left wing had seven points in three games over the weekend, but the Pats lost all three games. Regina is 10th in the 12-team Eastern Conference.

Klimchuk had a pair of assists Friday in a 5-3 loss at the Prince Albert Raiders. On Saturday, he had two goals and three assists, but the game ended with a 6-5 overtime loss to the visiting Spokane Chiefs. He was held off the scoresheet in Sunday's 8-2 home loss to Prince Albert.

For the season, Klimchuk is second on the team with 36 points in 30 games. He's ranked fifth by NHL Central Scouting in its preliminary top 25 ranking of Western Hockey League skaters eligible for the 2013 draft.