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Pre-tournament motion continued on the 2023 World Juniors on Wednesday as Sweden confronted off with USA and Canada with Slovakia. Pre-tournament play continues by way of Friday. Right here’s what you should know:
- USA beat Sweden convincingly 5-1. Luke Hughes (New Jersey) opened the scoring with a pleasant breakaway tally, and USA had 4 different goal-scorers together with two from their fourth line.
- Canada beat Slovakia 6-1. The one Slovakia aim was an personal aim by Canada’s Shane Wright who in any other case recorded his second straight multi-point recreation of the pre-tournament.
The Athletic’s immediate evaluation:
USA will get secondary scoring
Logan Cooley (Arizona), Hughes and Cutter Gauthier (Philadelphia) are anticipated to hold USA as top-5 NHL draft picks, however they need assistance from down the lineup to have success on this match. These three all performed very nicely, however the different strains did too.
2023 eligibles Charlie Stramel and Gavin Brindley factored into the offense, with Brindley making a extremely spectacular feed on the second aim to Kenny Connors (Los Angeles). The USA’s second line of Chaz Lucius (Winnipeg) between Rutger McGroarty (Winnipeg) and Jackson Blake (Carolina) additionally seemed fairly good and Tyler Boucher (Ottawa) performed nicely. Blake is the one ahead in USA’s high six who isn’t a first-round choose. He’s not that huge or fast, however he’s very expert and aggressive and didn’t look misplaced that prime within the lineup.
Canada’s second line leads the way in which
Towards Switzerland the second Canadian unit of Logan Stankoven (Dallas) in between Adam Fantilli (draft eligible) and Dylan Guenther (Arizona) was quiet however they have been their finest line towards Slovakia. Stankoven was taking part in quick, competing laborious and making a ton. Fantilli was taking part in on the high of his recreation exhibiting tempo and a number of offensive creativity and playmaking. That line had the puck a ton and created a number of scoring possibilities.
The eighth total choose by the Kings struggled a bit towards Switzerland, however tonight towards Slovakia he was Canada’s finest defenseman. His high-end talent, poise and offensive IQ have been on fixed show and he made a number of optimistic performs with the puck.
Gentle considerations for Sweden
On paper, Sweden has a extremely proficient roster. They’ve a plethora of first-round choose forwards and though they’ve a banged-up blue line this must be a high workforce within the match. They seemed a bit overmatched at instances versus the USA although. It’s solely pre-tournament and there’s loads of time to iron out kinks. For instance, this age group acquired overwhelmed down by the USA on the U18 Worlds within the pre-tournament solely to knock them out within the quarterfinals. Nevertheless, of their most up-to-date recreation earlier than this one on the U18 3 nations in November, this Sweden group additionally acquired trounced 6-1 by Finland.
(Picture: Bruce Bennett / Getty Photographs)
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