PLYMOUTH, MICH. – Lawson Crouse has looked at the world juniors from both sides now, and he sure preferred his original view.

In 2015 as a 17 year old, Crouse was part of Canada’s gold medal-winning team when the tournament was held in Toronto and Montreal.

“It was probably one of the best hockey experiences that I’ve went through,” the Kingston Frontenacs forward said.

Last season in Finland, Crouse, a 2015 first-round draft pick of the Florida Panthers, was also on board as Canada turned into a sinking ship, going down in a sixth-place finish, the worst showing by the country since an eighth-place disaster in 1998.

“Your entire country comes and rallies behind you and we go out and have a performance like we did,” Crouse said, still pained by the memory. “Obviously, we fell very short.”

Obviously.

With a 2-3 round-robin mark before exiting in the quarterfinals against Finland, the Canadians posted a losing record in the tournament for just the fourth time.

That was a young Canadian club, with just four returnees from the 2015 gold medal team — Crouse, Brayden Point, Jake Virtanen and Joe Hicketts.

This year’s team, currently partaking in USA Hockey’s national junior evaluation camp in Plymouth, Mich., along with the Americans, Sweden and Finland, counts nine returnees among the 41 players on the Canadian developmental roster — defenceman Thomas Chabot and forwards Crouse, Dylan Strome, Mitch Marner, Matt Barzal, Julien Gauthier, Travis Konecny, Mitchell Stephens and Anthony Beauvillier.

Canadian coach Dominique Ducharme has carefully divided his veterans up among the newcomers on his two practice groups, allowing them to offer sage advice not only on the ways of winning at the world juniors, but also to give the newcomers the lowdown on the pitfalls that can bring them down.

“The biggest thing is it’s a tough tournament,” Crouse said. “Winning isn’t easy. In life it’s the same thing. You kind of just have to push through any adversity you come to.

“That’s what we’re preaching, that this tournament isn’t going to be easy.”

Learning the proper methods of doing things is one of the talking points being bandied about here, and with good reason.

“For most of the guys here, it’s a first chance to impress the coaching staff and the management,” Crouse said. “It’s all about sending a good first impression, beginning with good habits that you can take into your club team and then eventually winter camp.”

Canada was all about bad habits last year. The Canadians were sloppy and took undisciplined penalties. Many of them never seemed to figure out their roles on the team.

“It’s kind of a tough question to answer,” Crouse offers in response to where it went off the rails for Canada.

The bad taste that it left it their mouths is not a delicacy they seek to sample again.

“We’re kind of over it now,” Crouse said.

Redemption officially won’t begin until Christmas, when the tournament gets underway but the first step in the process has already begun, and Canada’s new-look group appropriately gets its first test of game action Wednesday where it all ended for the Canadians last year — against the Finns.

When it matters this season, they’ll be back on home ice, looking to right Canada’s ship and win in front of the Canadian fans again in Toronto and Montreal.

Crouse is the one guy in this group who knows what that’s like, and he has been playing Master Kane to a dressing room full of Grasshoppers, keen to know how to snatch that pebble from the other team’s hands.

“Just talking to these guys, they’ve been asking a couple of questions about how it was,” Crouse explained. “There’s a lot of excitement about it and everyone’s going to be doing their best to make this team.”

And to make amends for last year.

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