Here's Everything You Need To Know About The 2019 World Juniors Quarterfinal Matchups

Alright, boys and girls. The calendars have switched over to the new year which means one thing and one thing only–the 2019 IIHF World Junior Championships are quickly coming to an end. We have 4 quarterfinal games today. Then the semifinals on Friday. And finally the medal games on Saturday with the bronze game at 4pm and the gold at 8pm. So if you take the relegation games between Denmark and Kazakhstan out of the equation, that means we have just 8 more games left of the 2019 World Juniors and half of them are today. Here’s how the preliminary round finished up for each group.

Russia came out of nowhere to be the only team in the tournament to win all of their preliminary games in regulation after a 2-1 win over Canada on New Years Eve. I didn’t have a ton of expectations for this Russian team before the tournament and I don’t think many other people did either. But with 4 games down, they’re undefeated with a goal differential of +9. As for Canada, well they’ve given up the fewest goals of the tournament and they’ve scored the most. But they just couldn’t get it done on NYE so now they’ll have to face a pesky Finnish team in the quarters instead of Slovakia. You just hate to see it.  (Sidenote: poor, poor Denmark. 4 games and not a single goal. That’s rough).

Sweden is also undefeated in the tournament so far but they needed to play a few extra minutes after giving up a 4-0 lead against Team USA and only got 2 points out of the game with an overtime win. Meanwhile, Team USA picked apart Finland on New Years Eve to keep hold of the 2nd seed from Group B after the preliminary round.

So I’m assuming by now the majority of people reading this blog understand how brackets typically work in a tournament. If you don’t, well then I’m not entirely sure how you even knew how to turn on your computer and/or mobile device to read this blog in the first place. But the 1st place team in Group A will play the 4th place team in Group B, then the 2nd will play the 3rd, and so on and so on. If you lose tonight, you’re beat for it. If you win, you have a chance at bringing home a medal. Pretty boiler plate shit here so let’s just jump right in to the previews.

Game 1 | Sweden (B1) vs Switzerland (A4) | 4pm EST

Players to watch for Sweden: 

  • F Emil Bemstrom (CBJ) – 4G, 2A, 6pts
  • D Erik Brannstrom (VGK) – 4G, 4pts
  • G Samuel Errson (PHI) – 4GP, 4W, 0.920 sv%
  • .

Players to watch for Switzerland:

  • F Philipp Kurashev (CHI) – 5G, 1A, 6pts
  • F Nando Eggenberger (2019) – 1G, 2A, 3pts
  • G Luca Hollenstein – 2GP, 1W, 1 OTL, .960 sv%
  • .

The Swiss did a great job against Canada in their preliminary round matchup by making that a 1-goal game. So they’ve proven that they can hang tight with the best teams in this tournament. Granted, Canada had just put up 14 goals on Denmark the night before so maybe they just ran out of juice in their sticks but still. Canada was a 1-goal game. Czech Republic was a 1-goal game. They gave up 7 against Russia but it’s not like Switzerland is necessarily an easy out. But I mean…Sweden is just way too deep defensively to give Switzerland enough chances here to make this a game. And not only are their defensemen studs on the backend, but they are weapons offensively as well. Just look at the shit that Erik Brannstrom can do with the puck on his stick.

I think all the Swedes need to do is score 3 goals and this one is over. Sweden doesn’t necessarily have a ton of star power offensively so I don’t see them just running away with this game. But it should still be a relatively easy win for Sweden moving into the semis. I could see the -2.5 coming down to an empty netter.

Sidenote: I didn’t get a chance to blog this at the time but the fact that Switzerland was awarded 2 penalty shots on the same play against Russia and failed to score on both attempts is…well…how do you say…actually bad.

Game 2 | Canada (A2) vs Finland (B3) | 6:30pm EST

Players to watch for Canada:

  • F Morgan Frost (PHI) – 4G, 3A, 7pts
  • F Max Comtois (ANA) – 5G, 1A, 6pts
  • G Mike DiPietro (VAN) – 3GP, 2W, 1L, .952 sv%
  • .

Players to watch for Finland: 

  • F Eeli Tolvanen (NSH) – 0G, 2A, 2pts
  • D Henri Jokiharju (CHI) – 2G, 1A, 3pts
  • G Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (BUF) – 4GP, 2W, 2L, .934 sv%
  • .

If Finland is going to have any chance of preventing Team Canada from medaling on their home soil for the first time ever, they are going to need their studs to finally step up. As you’ll see there, Eeli Tolvanen only has 2 assists as his only points of the tournament so far. This is his 3rd World Juniors and it has been his worst by far. It’s alarming how inconsequential he has been to this tournament. And even if he does decide to show up, it still might not be enough for the Finns because this Canadian team is coming into tonight’s game after an embarrassing loss to Russia. Not only was it an embarrassment just on the scoreboard, but it was also the way they lost. I mean just look at this shit from Max Comtois the other night.

Canada taking dives against Russia? In a loss? Yikes. If they roll that loss right into a loss to Finland at the World Juniors, this team will go down in history as one of the biggest disappointments in Hockey Canada history. So I think they’ll come out absolutely firing tonight to make sure that’s not the case. Now unfortunately for me, I had this game predicted as my Gold Medal Game before the tournament. So obviously I got that one wrong and one of these teams will be leaving without a medal. But it’s going to be a show regardless. I think if Canada didn’t just lose to Russia, however, it could potentially be a game that is decided in overtime. But I just think with Canada coming into this one off a loss, it’ll be the edge they need to take over from the start.

Game 3 | USA (B2) vs Czech Republic (A3) | 8pm EST

Players to watch for USA: 

  • F Ryan Poehling (MTL) – 6G, 2A, 8pts
  • F Jack Hughes (2019) – 1GP, 0G, 1pt
  • G Cayden Primeau (MTL) – 2GP, 2W, .929 sv%
  • .

Players to watch for Czech Republic:

  • F Martin Kaut (COL) – 2G, 1A, 3pts
  • F Filip Zadina (DET) – 0G, 1 pt
  • G Lukas Dostal (ANA) – 3GP, 2W, 1L, .957%
  • .

So here’s the thing–this game really comes down to which sweaters Team USA decides to wear. Because through the first 3 games of this tournament, I really didn’t enjoy watching this team play and that’s mostly due to the fact that they were wearing those bullshit motocross styled jerseys from the Olympics. Those things fucking suck and their play reflected that. They had to squeak out a 1-goal come from behind win over Slovakia. Then they let Kazakhstan score twice against them. Then they were down 4-0 to Sweden before making a ridiculous comeback to lose in overtime. But then in the 4th game? They switched over to the 1960 throwback sweaters and destroyed Finland on New Years Eve. That was the USA team that I was expecting to see all tournament and all it took was a jersey change. So if they wear the 1960 throwbacks again tonight, well then I’m expecting a big win. If they choose to go back to the Olympic jerseys? Well then this one is going to be tight.

Now as of the time that I’m publishing this blog, it still hasn’t been made official if Jack Hughes will play or not. He’s been practicing and on the ice over the last few days but he hasn’t played since the opening game against Slovakia. He’s missed the past 3 games with an undisclosed injury and I think the Sweden game showed how much this team misses him out there. He’ll obviously be a game changer if he’s in the lineup tonight. But as for other game changers, look for Filip Zadina to finally get himself going this tournament. Kid has an absolute weapon of a shot and if you give him any space to work with once he crosses the blueline, he’ll be able to send a goddamn rocket into the back of the net with ease. It hasn’t happened for him yet at this tournament but I can’t imagine he goes 5 games in a row without a goal. But yeah, if USA is wearing the throwback sweaters and Jack Hughes is in the lineup? Then they’re off to the semis.

Game 4 | Russia (A1) vs Slovakia (B4) | 10:30pm EST

Players to watch for Russia:

  • F Vitali Kravtsov (NYR) – 2G, 3A, 5pts
  • F Pavel Shen (BOS) – 3G, 1A, 4pts
  • G Pyotr Kochetkov – 2GP, 2W, .964 sv%
  • .

Players to watch for Slovakia: 

  • F Adam Liska – 2G, 3A, 5pts
  • F Adam Ruzika (CAL) – 2G, 1A, 3pts
  • G Samuel Hlavaj – 3GP, 1W, 2L, .898 sv%
  • .

Like I mentioned earlier in the blog, I was not expecting the Russians to come out on top of Group A. I didn’t even expect them to finish 2nd in the group. But after 2-1 wins over both the Czech Republic and Canada, they won themselves a matchup against Slovakia in the quarters. Slovakia was only able to put up 4 combined goals against USA, Sweden and Finland so yeah, it hasn’t been a great tournament for them so far. And with a team like Russia who has now shown that they can hold the best offensive group in this tournament to just 1 goal? Well that doesn’t give me a ton of confidence in Slovakia’s chances. Especially not when Russia has guys like Pavel Shen who can do this while they’re completely dismantling opposing offenses at the other side of the ice.

So as much as I hate to do this, I think I have to go chalk across the board for tonight’s WJC quarterfinals matchups. Which would give us a good ol’ fashion USA vs Russia matchup in the semifinals as well as a Sweden vs Canada matchup. Can’t complain with either of those games.

Now I’ll see everybody later for the USA vs Czech Republic Live Blog.

@BarstoolJordie

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