WJC Group Stage Jamboree: 3-ish Stars and Assorted Rambling Observations from Halifax & Moncton
WJC Group Stage Jamboree: 3-ish Stars and Assorted Rambling Observations from Halifax & Moncton
A round up of the 2023 WJC Preliminary Round featuring 3* stars, a USA update, and some unpleasant Canadian discourse
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It’s January 2nd, and the preliminary round of the 2023 World Juniors is in the books.
Set over the course of a week meant for nothing more strenuous than the walk from the couch to the fridge, the WJC group stage is perfectly suited to its holiday home on the calendar. While its placement in August did allow the 2022 World Junior to be the only iteration of the event that played out entirely in the year by which it is known, that ’22 go-round came nowhere close to approximating the joy of sitting down to a day of blissfully chaotic under-twenty international hockey with chilly winds blowing outside and not even a thought of responsibilities.
Between sold out buildings in Halifax and Moncton and a bevy of upsets, it’s not just the location on the calendar that have made the ‘23 event stand out. Before we dive too deeply into the events of the tournament’s round robin, it feels worthwhile to offer a general observation on WJC coverage.
The obvious tendency is to market the tournament in terms of prospect coverage. After all, very few potential viewers (myself among them) are intimately familiar with the rosters of the tournament’s ten teams, so selling the event on acquainting yourself with the NHL’s future stars stands to reason. Perhaps your favorite team has a top prospect or two in the tournament. Perhaps your favorite team’s season has already led you to thoughts of the 2023 Draft, and you want to learn more about its top available talent. Either way, it’s easy to see why the tournament is most accessible through the prism of individual pro prospects rather than complete teams.
There are however two issues with reducing this tournament’s field to merely collections of potential future NHL talent.
First, if you are interested in this event primarily as a vessel for prospect evaluation, you will inevitably be misled. The World Juniors affords a unique opportunity to watch prospects ply their trade within a two-ish year age band of the top players from across the globe. However, it is still a two-week tournament and thus ripe for falling victim to overreaching extrapolations from a small sample size.
Second, and more saliently for the event itself, perceiving the contenders primarily as prospect pools misses the fundamental point of the exercise: this isn’t a tournament meant to crown the team with the most impressive set of NHLers in five years. The point is to settle on the best U-20 team in the world right now.
To be sure, top-level talent is a prerequisite for victory. As charmed as we may be by the upstart and unrelenting Latvians or the well-organized and patient Swiss, those sides do not have the elite players necessary to win this event. However, even if a talent level reserved for the top five or so teams in the tournament is essential, how then do we distinguish between the top contenders?
A power play and goaltender in good form goes a long way, but at a more basic level, it is near impossible to win this tournament on firepower alone. In other words, no matter how talented a given roster might be, it is unlikely to score its way straight to a title. As we discussed in our Team USA preview, the challenge for coaches at an international tournament is to develop a functional, cohesive team. Even with elite talent to choose from in doing so, it is a task that requires serious and expeditious doing to leave the two-week sprint with gold medals.
3* Stars of the Group Stage
To craft our three stars of the group stage, we’ve employed a hyper-empirical metrict: Enjoyment/60. In other words, this isn’t an all-tournament team, nor an attempt to identify the best players at the tournament so far. This is a list of the players we’ve enjoyed watching the most. To wit, there are nine people on our three stars list.
1. The Swedish Top Six
Sweden raced out of the gates in the group stage with an 11-0 rout of the Austrians. In that game, the Swedes top line of Leo Carlsson, Filip Bystedt, and Isak Rosen had its way with an overmatched European rival. Bystedt and Rosen each netted two goals, and while he didn’t manage to net one of the Swede’s eleven goals in that opener, Carlsson has commanded plenty of attention from Swedish opposition so far.
At 6’3”, the prospective top-five pick in the ‘23 Draft (who plays for Orebro in the SHL) provides a unique combination of size and elegance. Between his intimidating physical presence, powerful skating, and acumen as a puck-handler, Carlsson is a force to be reckoned with in transition.
Although perhaps it’s not quite right to call this skillset unique, since it in fact bears a striking resemblance to that of his centerman Bystedt. After his brace against the Austrians, Bystedt was perhaps even better in the Swedes’ subsequent 1-0 win over Germany, where he seemed to be able to break into the German end whenever he pleased.
Thanks to their stature and graceful skating, Carlsson and Bystedt seem equally capable of knifing through their opponents whenever necessary. In Rosen, the pair have a sniper ready to get on the end of their impressive solo rushes and cap them by putting the puck in the net.
Meanwhile, the Swedes’ second line of Liam Ohgren, Noah Ostlund, and Fabian Lysell has been anything but secondary. Ohgren and Ostlund show a wonderful understanding of one another that allows them to pass their way through opposing defenses in what feels like classic Swedish fashion. They might not share the genetic chemistry of the Sedin twins, but Ohgren and Ostlund are both excellent passers who can progress the puck down the ice and into dangerous areas without having to beat a defender by themselves.
Lysell, on the other hand, is a devastating one-on-one winger in wide areas of the rink. The Bruins draft choice has the air of a classic soccer winger, one who wants “chalk on his boots” from lurking on the perimeter before sowing chaos by taking on defenders when the play does run through him. Lysell is lethal in his changes of direction and speed, and the result is often humbling for the defender lined up across from him. The following clip isn’t from this WJC but is too illustrative and impressive to omit here:
The Swedes’ success in the preliminary round was a triumph of the kind of cohesion we suggested is essential to a gold medal run. On raw, individual talent, Sweden is not the gold standard at this tournament, but, in how that talent fits together, Sweden was the class of the group stage. Add in some commanding defensemen like Axel Sandin-Pellikka and Ludvig Jansson, and for me, this was by some margin the most fun team to watch in the preliminary round.
2. Logan Cooley & Jimmy Snuggerud
Cooley and Snuggerud appear on the list, and I’m feeling a bit bashful about including a pair of Gophers, especially one whose dirty hit took Eric Ciccolini out of action for a prolonged period earlier in the season. However, out of an abundance of journalistic integrity, I’ve elected to set aside B1G rivalries for the time being in deference to American excellence.
Cooley seems to draw the extra-curricular ire of every U.S. opponent, but, between the whistles, his speed, vision, and puck-handling have made him one of the most impressive players in the tournament. The Pittsburgh-born center has a way of leading the rush in which his passes take on the quality of “watch this for me for a second” before he’s ready to receive the puck again and keep attacking. It’s not that Cooley is a selfish player—quite the opposite, in fact; he just has an ability to see the ice and anticipate at such an elite level that he often appears a play ahead of everyone else.
Snuggerud meanwhile has a knack for finding soft areas in opposing coverage and then leaning on elite finishing skill from all over the offensive zone to cap off Cooley’s solo ventures.
The pair’s chemistry was best on display on the U.S.’s opening goal against Switzerland.
They closed out the preliminary round by inverting their familiar paradigm.
Interestingly, Team USA head coach Rand Pecknold has only used this duo together at even strength, with Cooley playing on the top power play unit and Snuggerud on the second. This choice appeared unconventional, but with the American power play heating up and both units finding success, the Quinnipiac coach’s instinct to keep the two apart with the extra man seems to be working.
3. Lian Bichsel
There were myriad candidates for this third slot—from Latvian goaltender Patriks Berzlins to Czech defensemen David Jiriceck and Stanislav Svozil. However, we’ve landed on Swiss defenseman Lian Bichsel, who has distinguished from the tournament’s very first game.
The Swiss earned a shocking overtime victory over the Finns in the first game of this year’s group stage, and Bichsel’s imposing presence along the blue line was the obvious difference.
Switzerland has something of a history of outperforming its talent by playing a patient, possession-forward game at the World Juniors, and Bichsel’s toolkit suits that style perfectly. His size, skating, and puck moving helped allow the Swiss to exert control over that Finland game, even against an opponent with far more projectable NHL talent.
Bichsel spent the tournament’s first game making life miserable for the Finnish top line, before ending that game by stripping the puck off the Finn’s best player, leading the rush up ice, playing keep away in the corner the way you mind expect a grown adult to hold off their young child, then sending a pass to Attillo Bianca for the game winner.
He would add further overtime heroics later in the group stage by chasing down a would-be Latvian breakaway in what would eventually be a shootout victory for the Swiss.
Every WJC, a few blowouts invite a “make the tournament smaller” conversation. This take is always incorrect. The World Juniors is annually better for the texture it receives from standout performance from non-traditional hockey-playing nations.
Taking Stock of Team USA
Team USA won Group B in Moncton, winning three of its four games and outscoring its opponents 19-11 along the way. It capped its group stage run with a commanding 6-2 win over Finland on Saturday
The Americans entered the tournament with some elite NCAA talent, some uncertainty in net, and an apparent hype deficit to Canada.
By the end of the group stage, Trey Augustine alleviated whatever doubts shrouded the American crease going into the event. Augustine, a Michigan State commit currently playing for the U18 NTDP side, has three wins in three starts, a .925 save percentage, and 1.67 GAA. Colorado College’s Kaidan Mbereko was not as bad as his five goals conceded in a loss to Slovakia might suggest, but Augustine’s strong group stage means the U.S. will enter the knockout phase with a clear number one in net.
Up front, Rand Pecknold’s team established across four preliminary round games that it will rely on four distinct and effective lines. Team USA’s top line of Cooley, Snuggerud, and Boston College’s Cutter Gauthier is as skilled and dangerous as any in the tournament. The second line of Rutger McGroarty, Chaz Lucius, and Jackson Blake offers a potent supplemental scoring option. The third line of Dylan Duke, Red Savage, and Tyler Boucher had chemistry from the moment they came together at selection camp back in Plymouth and have been making life miserable for opponents from the instant they got to the Maritimes with their rugged, straight-ahead style. Meanwhile, the chemistry shared by winger Gavin Brindley and center Charlie Stramel has helped the fourth line play its part beautifully as a punch of energy in a limited role.
On the back end, the U.S. entered the tournament with a clear identity: prioritizing speed and puck moving over size. Throughout the week in Plymouth, Pecknold emphasized playing with pace, and that process had to begin with a mobile crop of defensemen. Over four games, that unit, led by Luke Hughes, Sean Behrens, and Lane Hutson has lived up to its billing.
Hughes, in particular, now playing with Behrens, has continued to improve throughout the tournament. Normally, we emphasize Hughes’ speed when discussing his brilliance, but, against a field of U20s, the rangy blue liner’s deceptive power has been more apparent than anything. Despite a slight frame, the youngest Hughes brother boasts a unique form of strength—a sense of invincibility as he leads a rush up ice that his pace will deter would-be checkers, an overpowering feeling of ease as he wires a shot from the point, an almost uncanny command to the way he can find a teammate’s tape from the opposite side of the rink.
Because of its depth and sound structure, I believe this U.S. team does have what it takes to win this tournament.
Add in the fact that both USA special teams units are thriving, and the U.S.’s path to success becomes even clearer. In the group stage, the Americans scored on five of their thirteen power plays (38.5%) and stopped nine of the eleven power plays they conceded (81.8%). Pecknold said before the tournament that a short, knockout tournament always favors teams with strong special teams and goaltending, and his USA side seems to check both those boxes.
With that said, it doesn’t have the pure firepower of the 2021 American WJC champions, nor can it match the explosiveness of tournament favorites and hosts Canada. While it scored five or more in all three of its victories, this U.S. team probably has a better chance of beating this Canadian team 3-2 than 7-6.
Even if it is an underdog, Team USA’s cohesion up front, dynamism across the blue line, and solidity in net suggest a team capable of making a deep run.
The Canada Discourse
In the first twenty-four hours of this year’s WJC, we achieved the entirety of the Canadian media panic cycle that normally unfolds across the entire tournament.
Canada played Czechia in the final game of day one, and predictably, the TSN broadcast crew set manageable expectations in its pregame coverage: This could be the best (Canadian) World Junior team ever.
Seattle Kraken forward-turned-Canadian captain Shane Wright put the hosts up one ten minutes into the game with a power play deflection.
Adam Fantilli and Connor Bedard—the leading candidates to be called first and second in this spring’s NHL Draft—each attempted the “Michigan” in the opening period but neither completed the move.
Late goals from David Spacek and David Moravec put the Czechs on top after twenty minutes. They would then score thrice in the second (with a Bedard tally mixed in) and smother the game in the third for a 5-2 victory.
Free from the context of Canadian coverage, the game was an exciting cap to an outstanding first day of the tournament that featured two major upsets, a hard-fought U.S. victory over the upstart Latvians, and a dazzling display of Swedish dominance.
The Czechs’ victory sent an emphatic message to anyone who believed a Canadian gold medal run to be inevitable and announced Czechia as a legitimate contender for the WJC crown. Still, a Canadian loss was far from devastating, given that the WJC format sends four of the five teams from each group to the knockout rounds.
However, the discourse from the game did not confine itself to these narratives. Instead, from the first intermission onward, TSN insisted that the Canadians’ loss was a reflection of Bedard and Fantilli’s arrogance, that of course Canada couldn’t just lose to a talented and well-organized opponent. It must be that their trick shots (two shot attempts in a game that featured sixty-five combined shots on goal) reflected an unseriousness in mentality.
Could coaching or pre-tournament preparations have accounted for this defeat? Of course not, it was two eighteen-year-olds’ fault for being too fancy.
The intermission review went out of its way to call out both Bedard and Fantilli’s missed assignments leading to the first period Czech goals. There is nothing wrong with criticizing an individual player for their performance, though when that athlete is not yet twenty-years-old it does feel fair to wonder what the purpose of doing so might be.
Personally, I see no reason for instant replay to become a vehicle to assign sole blame to an individual for a goal in a fluid and chaotic sixty-minute game, especially when we are never fully privy to the nuances of a particular team’s defensive zone coverage.
Then of course, there is a much larger conversation about Hockey Canada and who the media feels comfortable holding to account for what. Whenever a team takes the ice wearing the red and white maple leaf, the context of an ongoing investigation into systemic mishandlings of numerous (and continually enumerating it seems) sexual assaults remains inescapable.
Russia is not at this tournament (just as it was excluded from the August ’22 edition) because of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. This is the correct decision, even if it is unfortunate for the Russian prospects who have been denied the chance to play because of ugly imperialism they themselves had no part in advancing.
There was never any talk of holding Canada out of the ‘23 edition of the WJC, much less last summer’s, and I don’t think anybody benefits from trying to weigh the severity of Russia’s invasion versus Hockey Canada’s disastrous relationship to sexual violence.
What I can say is that one of these events is much more globally significant, while the other was a much more definitive representation of a national hockey organization participating.
It’s not clear to me whether Canada should have been excluded from either of these tournaments, but to see the immediate backlash against the team it did send because that team lost a hockey game while many pundits are quick to excuse or try to justify much uglier off-ice behavior is more than a little disheartening.
As an envious American, I used to relish in the mania that a Canadian defeat at the WJC would induce. Now it just feels sad. The way TSN seems to delight in telling teenagers they were too cocky, having built them up only to tear them down after a single period, all under the guise of accountability, is dark. The context of knowing the structural ways in which Hockey Canada has had no interest in holding itself or its athletes accountable for things much less trivial than hockey games won or lost over the last twenty years is far darker.
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