World Junior Ice Hockey Championship

TSN's annual holiday showcase of almost NHLers is nearly upon us

from Vancouver & Victoria in beautiful British Columbia, Canada

Group A

Canada

Canada tradionally hates allowing young players on this team, but potential top pick in 2020 Alexis Lafrenière has made the cut this year, after a dominant performance in the summer's U18 tournament. hopefully he has a strong start here, otherwise they might bury him deep on the roster.

the team suffered a blow when speedy forward Alex Formenton sustained a knee injury in warm-up play, knocking him out of the tournament, thus leaving Max Comtois as the sole returnee from the gold medal team a year ago. but there obviously still should be plenty of talent to go around. center Cody Glass (#6 pick in 2017), who should have made the team last year, and probably should be in the NHL right now, could lead the way. he will be aided by center Barrett Hayton (#5 in 2018), Nick Suzuki (#13 in 2017), and sniper Owen Tippett (#10 in 2017) should score a bunch of goals.

Evan Bouchard (#10 in 2018), Noah Dobson (#12 in 2018), and Ty Smith (#17 in 2018) should lead the way on the blueline, and diminutive Canucks prospect Michael DiPietro might get the nod between the pipes.

Czech Republic

the Red Wings have loaned Filip Zadina out for this thing? cool beans!
he hasn't had a tremendous start to his professional career in the AHL, but he was an incredible goal-scorer in this tournament a year ago, so the Czechs certainly have something to hang their hat on here.

would imagine that winger Martin Kaut (#16 in 2018) will be one of his running-mates here. also, goaltender Jakub Škarek was picked 72nd in 2018, which is indicitive of enough promise to make a difference for them.

Denmark

Jonas Røndbjerg returns from last year, which is significant because he led them in scoring. could be the difference between relegation and not. plus he has that really cool ø in his name! also, 6'6" dman Malte Setkov was a 4th round pick, so keep yer head up!

Russia

big center Klim Kostin is still eligible for this thing apparently, which is good news since he led them in scoring last year. he'll have some skill riding shotgun in wingers Grigori Denisenko (#15 in 2018) & Vitali Kravtsov (#9 in 2018), and 6'4" Alexander Alexeyev (#31 in 2018) might lead the way from the back. not sure what kind of 2019 prospects they have, but i guess we'll find out, especially since the "Russia factor" thing might be on the decline, judging from the '18 draft.

Switzerland

at least 3 drafted players, 2 on defense, so who cares right? i guess the not-very-Swissly-named center Philipp Kurashev will lead the way, as he's been doing for a terrible looking Quebec Remparts team this year.

Group B

Finland

many of the names you know have aged out of this tournament (or are in the NHL), so get ready to learn some new ones, given that Finland is so hot right now, as far as hockey prospects go anyway. sniper Kaapo Kakko is the headliner as a potential #1 pick in 2019, and center Rasmus Kupari (#20 in 2017) will likely be relied on for some heavy-lifting. guessing that 2nd round picks Aleksi Heponiemi & Jesse Ylönen will also bring some offense, and i'm personally interested to see what 5'9" Niklas Nordgren (#74 in 2018) can has in his bag of tricks.

on defense they've caught a break with the Blackhawks loaning out Henri Jokiharju (#29 in 2017), i saw hockey twitter arguing that he's been performing well in the NHL, but he's nevertheless found himself on the outs thus far in his rookie campaign. joining him is Anttoni Honka, brother of Julius? 6'4" Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (#54 in 2017) should get the nod in net.

Kazakhstan

returning after 9 years out of the top flight, so welcome back!
an OT win over Germany & a shootout win over Latvia is what did it for them, fine lines.
returning from that team are the tournament's top-2 scorers forward Artur Gatiyatov & dman Valeri Orekhov, which often isn't the case with these promoted teams, so hey, given all that, we'll see. maybe they won't be complete pushovers, as you might think at first glance.

Slovakia

their top player is dman Martin Fehérváry (#46 in 2018)? ya gl with that

they also have 3 Calgary Flames prospects fwiw, in case fake Geddy needed a 5th team to root for or whatever

Sweden

nothing too sexy looking about this team at first glance. most of their top players from last year are not returning. i thought Isac Lundeström (#23 in 2018) was a nice role player last year, and after a cup of coffee with the Ducks this year, i guess he'll be expected to take on a bigger role. Adam Boqvist (#8 in 2018) & Erik Brännström (#15 in 2017) should quarterback things from the back.

their top 2019 draft prospects (Broberg, Soderstrom, Bjornfot) are all dmen, and look to be kept off this team by older guys like Nils Lundkvist (#28 in 2018) & Rasmus Sandin (#29 in 2018). wtf happened to Sweden producing elite forwards btw? they all went to Finland or something...

anyway, Sweden should be solid as always, but it would be a massive upset if this was the year they broke through and won gold for the first time since 2012

United States

center Jack Hughes is the prohibitive favourite to be the #1 pick in the 2019 draft, and he's been a dominant player in these international tournaments, no reason to think that this will be any different. saw some analysis saying that despite the Hughes brothers leading the way, this is probably a down year for USA#1. of course, no one loves the faux underdog role as much as them, so look out.

joining them will be sniper Oliver Wahlstrom (#11 in 2018), who they must have stolen from Sweden, winger Joel Farabee (#14 in 2018), and centers Josh Norris (#19 in 2017) & Ryan Poehling (#25 in 2017). 6'4" K'Andre Miller brings the beef on the blueline that Quin Hughes lacks.

good news for rb: Germany will be back next year, in Ostrava & Třinec, Czech Republic!

2019 draft prospects: as i said earlier, the top-2 prospects are here in Hughes & Kakko. other than that it's looking pretty thin. seems to be a better year for Canadian prospects with as many as 6/7 top-10 picks, but i think the only youngster on the team is Lafrenière (2020). and as i mentioned earlier, all of Sweden's top prospects are dmen that are being held off by older ones. not sure if Russia's top guy winger Vasili Podkolzin made the team or not. same deal with USA#1's other standouts like Alex Turcotte, Cam York, Trevor Zegras, Cole Caulfield, etc. most of these guys will probably be waiting until next year, and draftniks will have to wait until the U18 tournament in the spring.

Let us puck.