The preliminary round is now over, so let’s go through the performance of each team and their top performers. In this article, I’ll go through Group A which includes Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Slovakia and Kazakhstan. If you’re curious about Group B, you can find my recap about them from here: https://dobberprospects.com/2020-wjc-recap-preliminary-round-group-b/ There [...]
The preliminary round is now over, so let’s go through the performance of each team and their top performers. In this article, I’ll go through Group B which includes Canada, USA, Russia, Czech Republic and Germany. There are no games in the tournament today. All four quarterfinal games will be played tomorrow, one [...]
In today's recap, I combined both games into one article because I'm sure not everyone was super excited about the Slovakia-Kazakhstan game. But it was an important game because the loser of the game would likely go to relegation round whereas the winner is very close to securing their playoff spot, so let's start [...]
The late game on day one was another big rivalry in European hockey when the reigning champions from Finland faced their neighboring country Sweden. Sweden had won an incredible 48 round robin games in a row coming into this game which means they had not lost a round robin game in over ten years - [...]
Day one of the World Junior Championship tournament was all about rivalries. The day started with an early game against the host country Czech Republic facing Russia. These were the lineups for the game. CZE-RUS lineups. Dostal and Askarov in goal. No Misyul yet on Russia, who left spots open after registering their [...]
Sweden has not lost a round robin game in over ten years but their success in the playoffs hasn’t been as good – they’ve won gold only once during that time. This year, their strengths are in net and on the blue line but their problem area is down the middle. Let’s take a [...]
Most of world’s best under-20 players will be in Czech Republic for the next couple of weeks to battle for medals at the World Junior Championship. There are a few players who would be eligible for the tournament but they are already full-time NHL players. But additionally, there are also some prospects who will [...]
Nikkanen is one of the players getting a bigger opportunity in the Finnish Liiga because of the World Juniors. Most of the players on Finland’s current WJC camp roster are full-time Liiga players which means less-established prospects could get bigger opportunities during the World Junior Championship tournament. This increased opportunity only lasts 5-7 [...]
Earlier today, Team Finland released their roster for their final training camp before the World Juniors. That roster includes 14 forwards, eight defensemen, and three goalies. The final roster can have 20 skaters and three goalies, so they will need to cut two more skaters at some point. At least one of those cuts [...]
The 2021 NHL Entry Draft is still a year and a half away but I feel like I already have a good idea of what the draft class looks like for European prospects and Finnish prospects in particular. I am planning on putting together a 2021 ranking of European prospects in the spring but [...]
