International TournamentsDiscuss International Tournaments like the WJC, Olympics, and World Cup, as they take place, or discuss past tournaments. performances.
Honestly if Gibson goes then you never know, sometimes all it takes is a stellar goalie performance. Gibson scares me more than any other goalie in the tournament and they have elite players like Jones and Trouba on D and Galcheyuk, Grimaldi and Gaudreau up front. Not a team to be taken lightly.
You have listed the extent of the elite talent on Team USA and even then, two of those forwards have serious question marks due to size. I don't doubt that top line can compete with others in the tournament. It's the rest of the team that will struggle.
Group B:
Canada
Russia
United States
Slovakia
Germany
QF1: Finland vs United States
QF2: Russia vs Czech Republic
SF1: Sweden vs United States
SF2: Canada vs Russia
F: Canada vs United States
B: Sweden vs Russia
Gold: Canada
Silver: United States
Bronze: Russia
A1 plays the winner of B2 vs A3 and B1 plays the winner of A2 vs B3. Your SF matches are wrong. The only chance a USA vs Canada final happens is if one team finishes second in the pool. One of first and third knock each other out.
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Exhibit A as to how hockey doesn't matter on ESPN:
Last night an ESPN program was discussing how the Detroit Pistons needed a hero citing the heroes on the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Lions and no mention of the Detroit Red Wings. All this despite the Red Wings probably being the most succesful team in Detroit right now.
In an eerily similar fashion to the Punchup in Piestany during their New Year's Eve Clash Canada and Russia engage in a game that turns into a free for all. They have to turn off the arena lights and bring in the Russian armed forces. Both teams are suspended for the duration of the tournament.
For me, the story of the 2013 WJC will be goaltending. The goaltending in this tournament is going to be phenomenal, perhaps an all time high! Super cliche, but if you are going to win gold your goaltending needs to be stellar, because chances are your opponent in any knockout game has a top notch goaltender as well.
USA - John Gibson, IMO, is the best junior aged goaltender in the world and immediately makes Team USA a threat. He is a little nicked up but I'm sure will be just fine come tournament time. An absolute wall between the pipes, he would make me incredibly nervous in a 1-off game.
RUS - Andrei Makarov looks like a completely different goaltender when he pulls on his country's jersey than when he plays in Saskatoon, and can single handedly steal a game. And if he's not up to the task, Vasilevski is stellar as well!
SWE - Oscar Dansk, while he hasn't had a great year on a horrible Erie team, is solid as well.
CAN - Malcolm Subban is in this elite level as well, some would argue at the very top. The most athletic in this group, IMO.
Such great goaltending in this tourney. So much talent! (I apologize if I left out any elite level tender from FIN/SVK/CZE etc., doing this off the top of my head and their tenders don't jump out at me...)
Obviously a huge factor is the NHL Lockout. If it remains, I feel Canada has too much talent to not list them as the favourite. However, if you remove RNH, Strome, Scheifele, Jenner, Huberdeau, Hamilton, Rielly and maybe Malcolm Subban from the fold, well that is too much to remain the favourite and I would list Russia # 1.
I'll do these predictions assuming the NHL stays locked out, because I truly think they are that stupid to not make something happen this week. 1-off knockout games with such great goaltending, anything can be turned on its head and could make for some pretty cool upsets! But I'm sticking with a pretty straight forward bracket. (I know, boring eh!?)
Group A:
Sweden
Finland
Czech Republic
Switzerland
Latvia
Group B:
Canada
Russia
United States
Slovakia
Germany
QF1: Finland vs United States
QF2: Russia vs Czech Republic
Sweden is probably a more heavily scouted nation than any other country outside North America. I would guess that they likely provide the third highest number of draftees per nation now after Canada and USA. If there is as much undrafted or poorly evaluated draft picks as you suggest, teams like Detroit and Vancouver might want to reevaluate their Swedish scouts
Maybe you have an outstanding crop of late bloomers and the NHL scouts have got it wrong the past couple of drafts, but it seems a tad far fetched. It's not like Sweden is similar to Russia in that the players want to stay and develop with their club teams and get paid lucratively in the KHL. There shouldn't be many mystery players showing up on the international radar from Sweden.
Also, I don't know how serious I can take comments from Ronnberg. He says a lot of stupid things in the media.
I do hope you are right though and that Sweden has a really strong group of forwards. It will make the tournament all that much better to have as many great teams as possible.
It is most heavily scouted nation for a reason. Sweden produces the biggest amount of NHL talent outside of NA.
Now, you're concerned about swedish forwards who are undrafted. Well, out of 14 players, 7 are drafted. Other 7 are: De la Rose, Lindholm, Wennberg, Sorensen, Boyce, Arvidsson and Froberg. So, 4 guys out of this group are just to young to be drafted, and will go to draft only this year. Out of 3 who are left, Boyce is a returning player with character, Arvidsson wasn't drafted because in 2011 he was 5'7 and still is small and Froberg has chemistry with some other players.
The fact that Pontus Aberg was not selected for WJC should tell you that swedish offense is very deep.
At defense the undrafted guys are Arnesson, Pettersson and Djuse. Djuse is a late-bloomer who played in a league that is not scouted much, Pettersson is smallish(5'8) offensive defenseman and Arnesson is late 94 birth and will go to the draft only in this season.
Also about Russia being a big favorite, I don't see it. Playing at home is oftenly a negative factor for a host and I don't really think that this russian team is a team that will dominate the tournament, their roster isn't that impressive.
Favorties are: 1-Canada, 2-Russia, Sweden 3-USA, Finland, Czech Republic
In an eerily similar fashion to the Punchup in Piestany during their New Year's Eve Clash Canada and Russia engage in a game that turns into a free for all. They have to turn off the arena lights and bring in the Russian armed forces. Both teams are suspended for the duration of the tournament.
Sweden: Gold
Finland: Silver
Czech: Bronze
So like half of the 2011 and 2012 draft picks are going to end up KIA?
Sweden is probably a more heavily scouted nation than any other country outside North America. I would guess that they likely provide the third highest number of draftees per nation now after Canada and USA. If there is as much undrafted or poorly evaluated draft picks as you suggest, teams like Detroit and Vancouver might want to reevaluate their Swedish scouts
Maybe you have an outstanding crop of late bloomers and the NHL scouts have got it wrong the past couple of drafts, but it seems a tad far fetched. It's not like Sweden is similar to Russia in that the players want to stay and develop with their club teams and get paid lucratively in the KHL. There shouldn't be many mystery players showing up on the international radar from Sweden.
Also, I don't know how serious I can take comments from Ronnberg. He says a lot of stupid things in the media.
I do hope you are right though and that Sweden has a really strong group of forwards. It will make the tournament all that much better to have as many great teams as possible.
Seriously, Swedens forward-crop looks good, it's our goalies and defense, that is the big question mark. For example a player like Viktor Arvidsson, that you probably never heard of have the skill to make some real damage against junior opponents on big ice. The reason he is not drafted is because he had his breaktrough this year and 5'9'' swedes never get drafted. To judge this forward crop from where they where drafted and disregard the comments from swedish posters that watch these players all the time, seems a bit strange to me. Of course it would have been great to see Zibanejad on this team, but as perry2perry keep telling you, we actually have a more skilled forward lineup than last years team that won gold. This team perhaps lacks a Johan Larsson though, a great leader. What we do have is Elias Lindholm, that currently are producing at a similar pace in SEL that Nicklas Bäckström and Peter Forsberg had at the same age.
It was always a bit strange that it was the swedish 1992's that won the gold considering the 1993's and 1994's have always been considered more talented, especially when it comes to forwards (well Landeskog is a big exception).
Last edited by cheerupmurray: 12-06-2012 at 03:48 PM.
I don't even know if I would consider Jones elite tbh.
Personally I wouldn't consider MacKinnon to be elite and he's regarded the same if not slightly better in terms of the upcoming draft. First time underagers are rarely able to have a big impact... even the ones who become superstars like Stamkos.
I would consider Barkov as elite, only because he's been in the tourney before... but even still he's borderline.
I don't even know if I would consider Jones elite tbh.
Personally I wouldn't consider MacKinnon to be elite and he's regarded the same if not slightly better in terms of the upcoming draft. First time underagers are rarely able to have a big impact... even the ones who become superstars like Stamkos.
I would consider Barkov as elite, only because he's been in the tourney before... but even still he's borderline.
Last year Jones was in line to play top pairing minutes for the US team. He was a significant loss from the team last year. Now it's hard to say what he would have done since he wasn't there, but Barkov didn't really do anything.
