We are just a week away from the start of the 2024 World Junior Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden.
It all gets going on December 26th.
We’ll have games at 6am, 8:30am, 11am, and 1:30pm all week long.
And I’ll be honest, that takes a ton of the buzz out of the tournament.
So let’s get started with the preview.
Roster sizes are 23 players, so clearly something was going on there.
I mean it makes sense when you look at that lineup from last year.
So other than Beck, it’s a whole new team showing up to Sweden.
But again, there was still that one open roster space available for them to do something with.
And yesterday they made their move.
There are definitely more talented players in this tournament, but nobody else has that level of experience.
Celebrini is the top prospect coming into the 2024 NHL Draft.
And that’ll be what we can expect out of Macklin Celebrini next week.
Keep in mind that he’s still just 17-years-old and won’t turn 18 until June.
Obviously I already mentioned Matt Poitras at the top here.
He’s got a set of mitts on him.
I’d say in net is probably where Canada has their biggest question marks.
Team Sweden
This will be a big tournament for Sweden as the host nation.
Sweden has hosted the World Juniors 6 times before this year.
This is a team that could absolutely make it back to a gold medal game this year.
You’ve got Team Canada with kids putting up 95 points per season in the OHL.
You’ve got Team USA with kids putting up 40-50 points in the NCAA.
Filip Bystedt (SJS ‘22, 1st rd)had a good tournament last year.
He finished top 10 in points with 10 points in Sweden’s 7 games.
He was also the captain of the Swedish U18 team in 2022 that won gold at Worlds.
But back to the main point here.
This group won gold at the 2022 U18 Worlds.
They lost in the gold medal game in last year’s U18 Worlds.
Just missed out on medaling at last year’s WJC.
Sweden is DANGEROUS for this tournament.
One year they are playing for gold, the next year they are fighting to just not get relegated.
Just a really weird trend with this team.
Right off the bat, the biggest name missing on this roster is Joakim Kemell.
He’s 17-years-old and playing in the top league in Finland.
He has 8 goals and 12 assists in 28 games so far this year for Jukurit.
Also, I just hope people call him Arttu Detoo.
So their U20’s weren’t very good last year, and their U18’s were even worse.
So the biggest goal for Germany this year just needs to beat Latvia and attempt to avoid relegation.
Latvia was able to beat Austria last year to avoid getting relegated for this year’s tournament.
See everybody tomorrow for the Group B preview, featuring the future 2024 World Junior Champions…USA.
