Tournament not lacking in bizarre storylines
Two teams that were supposed to be in the final are meeting in the quarterfinal, the fate of the best team in the tournament might be determined by some angry microbes and the effectiveness of their quarantine program, and the player everyone wanted to see hasn’t been seen in a week.
Welcome to the 2019 world junior championship, which can be accused of a lot of things, but predictability is not one of them.
With the round robin now over, the tournament’s quarter-finals have been set amid some bizarro storylines, including a mystery flu bug that has hit the Swedes, the mysterious disappearance of the Finns and the mysterious condition of American star Jack Hughes.
The short story is Canada meets Finland, Russia faces Slovakia, Sweden plays Switzerland and the U.S. tangles with the Czech Republic today to determine who advances to the semis.
As for the longer story, well, sit down; this takes some telling.
First, Sweden. The Tre Kronor clinched first place in the B pool with a 4-1 win over Kazakhstan on Monday, extending their round robin winning streak at the WJC to a mind-boggling 48 games. But the larger story with the Swedes was a flu bug that knocked five players out of its lineup. It left them with a 15-man bench and a lot of uncertainty for today’s contest with the Swiss in Victoria.
Missing in action against the Kazakhs were defencemen Adam Ginning and Philip Broberg, two key parts of Sweden’s strong blue-line, and top-six forward Rickard Hugg. Forwards Johan Sordergran and Filip Sveningsson also were scratched, which meant nine Swedish players saw more than 19 minutes of ice time.
“We haven’t got any more players down and the first four guys are getting better,” Swedish head coach Tomas Monten said on Tuesday. “We’ll isolate them tonight and if everything works out, we have big hopes of getting them back. Then it’s an issue of how strong they are.”
Monten said Sordergran has been hit hardest by the virus. He’s also not thrilled about the 1 p.m. start time today, but, “It is what it is.”
Yes, it generally is.
The flu scare aside, the Swedes have been the class of the B pool, with the only hiccup coming in the final 10 minutes of their 5-4 overtime win over the States. In that game they blew a 4-0 lead before Adam Boqvist scored the game-winner.
They have the best blue-line at the WJC, the best player in the B pool in defenceman Erik Brannstrom, the deepest lineup, and they’re motivated by last year’s loss to Canada in the goldmedal game.
Still, Monten said this tournament is wide open and he rated his team’s chances against the Swiss as a 50-50 proposition.
“If we play them eight times they win four and we win four,” he said. “We have to play our best game at this world juniors to beat them.”
The Canada-Finland quarterfinal, meanwhile, was tabbed as the most likely final by most pretournament prognosticators, but Canada’s 2-1 loss to the Russians on New Year’s Eve and Finland’s 4-1 loss to the States means they’ll be meeting a tad earlier. Finland, lent three players by their NHL clubs and featuring blue-chip prospect Kaapo Kakko, has been a crashing disappointment, scoring just one goal in each of its losses to Sweden and the States.
The Americans, for their part, gained momentum from their near-comeback against the Swedes and are expecting Hughes back in the lineup today, after the star centre missed three games with an undisclosed injury.
“We’ve used the back end of that (Sweden) game to reinforce the things we have to do to be effective,” U.S. coach Mike Hastings said on Tuesday. “That game showed when we play with some tendencies, we’re a lot better team.”
Hastings was asked if those tendencies include a simpler, more direct game. “Absolutely,” he said.
The win over Finland was keyed by a two-goal performance from Canucks draft pick Tyler Madden, who has emerged as a key player for the Americans.
On Monday, Madden saw firstunit power-play time and played a top-six role while killing the odd penalty.
Hastings said that versatility has made the slender forward invaluable to his team. Predominantly a centre at Northeastern, Madden is also playing right wing for the U.S.
“As a coach it’s comforting when you have a player who’s that versatile,” Hastings said. “It allows you to do different things with your lineup and we’ve had to do some different things (with Hughes out).
“(Madden) is not just versatile. He’s contributing.”
Madden’s second goal on Monday night came off a scramble in front of the Finnish net when he fought through a scrum to get to a loose puck.
“For a guy his size, he’s fearless between the dots,” Hastings said of the 150-pound winger. “I appreciate the way he plays.”
And Hastings thinks it would be a swell idea if fans in Vancouver could appreciate Madden for a couple of games.