VSN Presents: S93 World Junior Championship Preview!

[McLovin 412]

(graphic pending again )

VSN Presents: S93 World Junior Championship Preview!

 

 

Hello everybody, and welcome to yet another season of VSN WJC coverage! As our readers know, the WJC is a highly anticipated tournament within the VHL, where prospects from all across the VHLM & E demonstrate their skills and make a significant impact both on the ice and in their draft stock! With the tournament set to start in just a few days, and the team’s all but locked in at this point, we at VSN figure it’s a better time than ever to take a look at how the WJC’s rosters might shape up over the coming weeks, and see which teams have the best shot at taking home the Gold Medal this season! With that all being said, let’s get into the preview!

 

 Team Asia

 

Starting this list off alphabetically, we have Team Asia! As is the case with most seasons of this tournament, Team Asia’s depth sheet leaves a lot to be desired. While they have a good handful of players at key positions they could lean on, including Petit Hughie @Sen & Soju @Frank at defense and goaltending respectively, there just isn’t enough high star power, or lower line depth for me to confidently say that Team Asia will pull through all the way. That’s not saying that they might not draft well to fill the gaps, and perhaps grab players from teams with TOO much talent to spare, but if you’re matching up against those teams with the players they didn’t need, it’s going to leave a lot to be desired. Team Asia, while still being able to have a fighting chance in the tournament, probably wouldn’t be expected to go all the way off pure talent alone. Anything can happen though, so we'll see what happens for them!

 

 Team Canada

 

Up next on our list, we have Team Canada! Canada is a very interesting team this season in terms of its potential roster. With a strong emphasis on centers to lean on and win draws, Canada is expected to be a team that will dominate games in the possession numbers. With Toddly Bobbly @ToddlyBobbly & Herald Benson @Benson representing the team in net most likely, Team Canada is gonna have a solid goaltender to lean on every single night. With such a good offense and goaltending, there had to have been a catch, and that came in the form of a weaker than expected defensive pool to choose from. As it stands right now, Carson Tripp @Cartripp14 is their best defenseman at 277 TPA. While that is serviceable, and will provide Canada with a good backbone, it may prove to be a strain on the amount of shots the goalies end up facing in games. When you measure it up against teams like Team USA or Team World, it definitely looks to be a competition of just outshooting and outscoring your opponent. We shall see if the strategy pays off for Canada in the long run!

 

 Team Europe

 

Onto the halfway point of our preview, we got the stacked Team Europe! These guys are definitely my vote to be the ones to potentially win it all! Similarly to Canada, these guys have an absolutely stacked offense. S94 VHL first overall pick Maverick Goncalves @leandrofg, Nico Belique @Syzygy, Antonia Bucatini @CowboyinAmerica are just a few of the elite talents that Europe is bolstering this season, and could potentially be game changers for Team Europe and the tournament if they’re all put on the same line. With David Slezak @ShawnGlade in net as well, Europe is a dangerous team both in net and in the offensive zone. With that said however, they are very similar to Canada in the sense that they also lack deep defensive depth. With Scrungle Bungle @Novanod headlining Europe's defensive core at a solid 334 TPA as of writing this, it’s serviceable, but it severely drops off from that point. By a margin of 110 TPA, to be exact. Slezak has his work cut out for him, but if he and Aleksanteri Kaskiniemi-Kekkonen @Snussu can lock it down for them, they have a seriously solid chance at securing gold for Team Europe!

 

 Team USA

 

Nearing the end of our list, we got Team USA, and what an interesting team we have here! It’s certainly not something you see very often, but this is a team that has an eligibility sheet of almost all defensemen. With a handful of forwards across the board, and almost no VHLE goaltending representation available, this team is an almost complete polar opposite to Canada and Europe. With the likes of Gul Dukat @MSouthworth, Jillian Woods @jacobcarson877 and Lucy Leitner @LucyXpher headlining the top players of Team USA, they’re all defensemen! They have a handful of serviceable wingers thrown into the mix, but next to no elite centers or goaltenders to lean on. With this in mind, Team USA is going to HAVE to be a shutdown team. The defense is gonna be relied on HEAVILY, in 5v5, special teams, I wouldn’t be surprised to even see defensemen playing forward positions if they somehow find a way to pull that off with the commissioners (please let that happen, it would be so funny.) Either way, Team USA is a very interesting team, but has the tools to shut down some of the big offenses in the tournament like Canada and Europe where needed, so we will see what happens!

 

 Team World

 

Last but not least, we have Team World! In a bit of a similar situation to Team Asia, Team World is lacking a bit in terms of great depth to lean on, but they make up for it in their high end talent spread across all positions. Olumide Anders @Theory, Sunset Moth @McWolf and Jorgen Lovstrom @Pifferfish all either at max TPA or nearly to it, they all provide solid anchors for their positions at forward, defense, and goaltending respectively. Team World has a fair amount of defensive and center depth to lean on too, with Hezeus Ohmontegue-Steinhardt X @Sisyphus and Piston Maicupp @MandyManiac being the notable players in those regards. All in all, World has the pieces it needs to make a deep run, but will a lengthy run in the round robin and medal games prove to be too much for the high end talent, and the team buckles under the pressure? Only time will tell, but this is certainly an interesting and fun team to watch going into this season's tournament no doubt!

 

With all being said, this season's World Juniors is shaping up to be a remarkable and unique tournament, especially in some of the teams interesting depth charts! If I were to predict who I think has the pieces to go all the way, my bet would be Europe, but in all honesty ANY team can do it. Round Robin only determines seeding, all you have to do in the medal round to win it all is win 2-3 games, so it’s anybody's tournament! Thank you all for reading this season's edition of the WJC preview, tune in next time when we dive deeper into the games, and see if any teams surprised us along the way!

Edited May 20 by Alex

[McLovin 412]

Also claiming for 5/26/24 :PPP

[LucyXpher 864]

Nice article!  Definitely gonna be an interesting tournament given the different strengths of each country!  Thanks for doing this write up!

[Banackock 7,808]

Woooo

[Mysterious_Fish 306]

I will do what I did with the states
MIRACLE.
ON.
ICE.
Asia Edition!