Welcome to the later holiday ramblings by me at Dobber Prospects. It is one of the best times of the year with the World Junior play beginning where prospects are showcased, and then the ones with great performances usually have meteoric rises on some scout boards which shows how valuable some scouts take this… or perhaps it means they do not watch them play often.

 

Every year for the last five years at least I have done a World Junior Championship pool, where we pick all of team Canada’s players (as we are all Canadian) and one international player (I did finally convince them to go with two international players for next season). No goalies are selected either. There are five of us. I believe I have the last couple years in my google docs, here are the results if you would like to see the past two:

 

2019:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ws7eRRdyYMum8aGSU8ifgUYnGCcdKu87ThApdQgbkps/edit?usp=sharing

 

2018:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eP1RbbJIjX9kYyl_jJ48DxvvBDmSmo0wU0evBTFj2TE/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

Scoring is simple as it is one point for a goal, assist, gwg, and shoot out gwg. It is a snake draft… which kind of screws over last pick, hence why we are adding an extra international pick. Also you get points for all round robin games, playoff games for the medals, and the gold medal game.

 

 

Before I go round by round, here is my #GoodTweet of the holidays:

 

{source}<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Damn Bowman is so bad at math he needs two goalies to help him :( <a href=”https://t.co/2sBH9n6l7d”>https://t.co/2sBH9n6l7d</a></p>&mdash; Pat Quinn (not that one) (@FHPQuinn) <a href=”https://twitter.com/FHPQuinn/status/1209166301618307073?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>December 23, 2019</a></blockquote>{/source}

 

 

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Round 1

 

1. Darcy – Alexis Lafreniere

• No brainer pick

 

2. Hadlari – Quentin Byfield

• Interesting pick, kind of going off board but barely as he still would go top four

 

3. Aaron – Barrett Hayton

• The most NHL ready forward to pick is a great selection. By that I mean he played in the NHL this season.

 

4. Me – Joe Veleno

• This was a no brainer pick for me. Veleno is playing well in the AHL, is on the top powerplay, and is Lafreniere’s centre for the tournament

 

5. Jordo – Nolan Foote

• Playing the sniper role on the top line makes this a great pick

 

Round 2

 

1. Jordo – Dylan Cozens

• The last top six forward left, which is usually what happens in this spot

 

2. Me – Connor McMichael

• I know he was shown as being on line four, and Hunter probably has a plan to keep him fresh for the OHL season, but he is also second in the OHL in points. Side note: Why are McMichael and Kaliyev both playing on their representative teams fourth lines? Weird.

 

3. Aaron – Ty Dellandrea

• A solid player and the third line centre for Canada. Will see more defensive responsibilities than offensive though

 

4. Hadlari – Bowen Byram

• A great defenseman but it does not look (so far) like he will get a lot of powerplay opportunities, where he would excel

 

5. Darcy – Liam Foudy

• Playing on the third line, Foudy should be a solid contributor all over the ice

 

Round 3

 

1. Darcy – Nils Lundkvist

• The first international player goes and it is possibly the top Swedish defenseman (Rasmus Sandin is there too I know) who has had a fantastic SHL season so far. He should get the points as Sweden goes far in the tournament

 

2. Hadlari – Aiden Dudas

• The other member of that third line for Canada. He should play solid hockey. If you cannot tell by now I do not have a ton of faith in the third line for Canada scoring a lot of points as I am sure Hunter used it as a shut down and PK group.

 

3. Aaron – Akil Thomas

• Centres the fourth line and is a great player. I think the fourth line can surprise

 

4. Me – Raphael Lavoie

• The other member of the fourth line. I took a risk here as I mainly wanted Ty Smith but decided maybe Hunter would use the big forward to score on occasion

 

NOTE: I really did not like my draft for this pool this year haha

 

5. Jordo – Jared McIssac

• A top four defenseman for Canada who should put up the points

 

Round 4

 

1. Jordo – Ty Smith

• Both picks were made immediately so I was just putting them in this order. Smith is a fantastic dman who should play solidly in the top four and put up points

 

2. Me – Kevin Bahl

• I am a Devils fan, and he had just scored in regulation, and everyone is talking about him, and Hunter seems to love him, and … yeah I cannot keep justifying it. I should have taken Addison or Drysdale haha

 

3. Aaron – Jamie Drysdale

• A solid choice and hopefully Hunter uses him

 

4. Hadlari – Oliver Whalstrom

• A top line player for the USA, he should be lighting the tournament up as he is playing in the AHL but so far has been underwhelming.

 

5. Darcy – Jacob Bernard-Docker

• Having only three Canadians left taking JBD is a great move as he should play a ton of minutes for Canada

 

Round 5

 

1. Darcy – Dawson Mercer

• Taking the 13^th forward is a risky move but one that could pay off.

 

2. Hadlari – Calen Addison

• Oh wow all he did was select the defenseman who is the powerplay quarterback for Canada. Yeah we all screwed up leaving him for last, especially me who should know this stuff! Oh well, out drinking and making a pool you will have tons of brain farts. Like did I mention how often I drafted Cory Schneider this year….

 

3. Aaron – Cole Caufield

• He should be the top goal scorer for the USA but their line up is deep, so he is hoping that the USA goes far and Caufield helps with that. So far that does not look to be the case.

 

4. Me – Grigori Denisenko

• The captain for team Russia should be a top player at the tournament. Is it a risk to take the Russians in the tournament because of how deep group A is, why yes it is, but the Russians always play well at the WJC and he should have a top role

 

5. Jordo (Canucks homer) – Vasily Podkolzin

• He followed my thinking with team Russia as they do have Askarov in net and he could 100% steal the whole tournament.

 

 

Here is the current link for your viewing pleasure:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12XJ7GP1tbkJEjfHBHnaPALtwUyXu–CtGABakaCdyU8/edit?usp=sharing

 

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the best tournament!

 

Oh, also follow my twitter: @FHPQuinn