USA Gets On The Road To World Domination Today Against Norway At The World Juniors
Minas Panagiotakis. Getty Images.Who: USA vs Norway
What: World Juniors tournament opener
When: 11am EST
Where: Gothenburg, Sweden // NHL Network
Why: Because USA Hockey is Do Or Die
Boxing Day is truly one of the most underrated days of the year. All the chaos of Christmas has finally subsided. Maybe you're lucky enough to be off from work still. But even if you're stuck in the office today, nobody is actually getting any work done this week. And on top of everything, the World Junior Hockey Championships get underway.
We already had a couple of solid games this morning with Slovakia dummying the Czechs, and Canada taking on Finland. And now we get a chance to see the favorites hit the ice for the first time this tournament, and they get a little late Christmas gift by drawing Norway with the opening game.
This is Norway's first time back in the top division of this tournament in close to 10 years. Last year they won the Division 1A tournament to get promoted to the top division, but that was against teams like Kazakhstan and France and Hungary. Now they're back against the big boys, and they have to start their tournament against a team who has every reason to feel like this is a "gold or bust" tournament for themselves--Team USA.
I've already written everything you need to know about this American team in my Group B preview blog, so you can check that out here to get familiar with the team.
But long story short, this team is LOADED. They have NHL talent all across the board. There are only 2 players on this entire roster that haven't been drafted by an NHL team already, and that's because they're both not eligible to be drafted until this upcoming summer. Zeev Buium is a defenseman who will likely get drafted in the 1st round, and Sam Hillebrandt is a backup goalie who we probably won't get a chance to see much of this tournament. But other than that, all of these guys are property of an NHL team. 16 of the players on this roster were drafted in the first 2 rounds of their respective drafts, and they have nine (9!!!!) forwards who were all drafted in the 1st round.
Again, this lineup is LOADED.
Norway, on the other hand…well they don't have a single player on their roster who has been drafted yet. But if there's one kid to keep an eye on during this game, it's Michael Brandsegg-Nygärd. Depending on what rankings you look at, he's projected to go somewhere in the top 10-20 in this summer's draft. Skill wise, he'll be one of the few Norwegians able to keep up in this game. But he's still young, and this tournament typically does a great job of demonstrating just how much bigger and stronger 19-year-olds are than 17-year-olds. Unless that 17-year-old kid is Connor Bedard.
So expect this game to be very one-sided. But it's still the opening game of the tournament for both teams. USA was able to win both of their prelim games against Sweden and Canada, so I don't think they'll be too rusty coming out of the gate. But it still might take them a little while to get going, and Norway will be playing with a ton of juice with nothing to lose. Final score will certainly get ugly, but maybe the 1st period will be interesting.
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No live blog for today's game since it'll likely be over before the 3rd period starts. But we'll bring the live blogs back for the games against Slovakia and Czechia. Until then, feel free to just follow along on Twitter for updates.