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WJC: 2020 IIHF WM U20 D2A in Vilnius, LITHUANIA (06.01. - 12.01.2020.)

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PanniniClaus said:
Appreciate the very detailed analysis. Will being at Div 1 A bring some of the best players into the fray or will it not matter? Seems odd that if a Croatia can luck into the odd naturalized goaltender, Romania can't.
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Well Croatia had a KHL team and the KHL team attracts players of whole another caliber. Even when it was EBEL team, still it's at the level where you can get top ECHL guys or lower end AHL guys to play for you. While Romania is a country where you go if you are too bad to play professional hockey anywhere else but still really want to do it. So the level of players you can naturalize is different and players themselves have next to no interest to really tie themselves with Romania. Also it has to be said, it doesn't seem like Romanians really tried to naturalize anyone until recent years. A lot of countries sign certain players having them play for their NT in mind (Croatia, Korea, Kazakhstan, maybe Belarus on occasion) while it doesn't seem Romanian federation has any control of such matters. But they lucked into Slovak goalie anyway.

Being in D1A will probably be a chance to see the best Romanian NT ever. Olympic games qualifiers were sort of practice tournament for them and yes, pretty much all their best available players, other than Antal, attended. Having said that, I don't think even their best team can get any points there. It will be a good chance for someone like Rokaly to maybe get a job abroad.
 
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This D2A group is incredibly weird too.
There are teams in D2A that could just as easily be in D2B.

Croatia has been in shambles the last few seasons and keep getting stuck in D2B.
Netherlands have been a mainstay in D2A but as a bottom end team.
South Korea for some reason haven't been as good at U20s as they are at U18. They're a serious contender at U18 but their U20 team has choked a few times recently.

Serbia & Spain are countries that you would expect to get to D2A one time in a decade and immediately go back down but somehow Spain survived last year. Romania should be similar to Croatia & Netherlands as D2A/2B tweeners.
 
Not really. Romania is above those in every level imaginable at absolutely everything.

I mean there isn't really much weird about this division. This is basically where teams who develop pros somewhat regularly and those who don't meet. Those who do, be it Estonia, Poland, GB, Lithuania, etc. are somewhat good and those who don't are bad. Romania is in between but definitely closer to 1st group than the 2nd. The Netherlands used to be decent but their hockey pretty much collapsed at every level over the last 10 years. The rest was more or less always trash. Croatia was never any good, they were just somewhat better than the rest. Position currently occupied by Spain.
 
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SoundAndFury said:
Not really. Romania is above those in every level imaginable at absolutely everything.

I mean there isn't really much weird about this division. This is basically where teams who develop pros somewhat regularly and those who don't meet. Those who do, be it Estonia, Poland, GB, Lithuania, etc. are somewhat good and those who don't are bad. Romania is in between but definitely closer to 1st group than the 2nd. The Netherlands used to be decent but their hockey pretty much collapsed at every level over the last 10 years. The rest was more or less always trash. Croatia was never any good, they were just somewhat better than the rest. Position currently occupied by Spain.
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Actually that's not true entirely. We had good run from 09 till 12. We were in division 1 and later 1B with some nice results like beating Italy, Japan, Poland, stealing point from Austria. Something that won't happen again in next 100 years :)
 
pukovnik said:
Actually that's not true entirely. We had good run from 09 till 12. We were in division 1 and later 1B with some nice results like beating Italy, Japan, Poland, stealing point from Austria. Something that won't happen again in next 100 years :)
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Was it not the case of you having one good generation and then it simply taking some time for things to shake out after the divisional restructure? As far as I can tell, Rendulic and Tomljenovic were the only decent players on those teams. But I might be wrong.

Meanwhile, on the ice, the relegation battle is locked at 1-1 in the 3rd. 2 equally bad teams, one should say.
 
SoundAndFury said:
Not really. Romania is above those in every level imaginable at absolutely everything.

I mean there isn't really much weird about this division. This is basically where teams who develop pros somewhat regularly and those who don't meet. Those who do, be it Estonia, Poland, GB, Lithuania, etc. are somewhat good and those who don't are bad. Romania is in between but definitely closer to 1st group than the 2nd. The Netherlands used to be decent but their hockey pretty much collapsed at every level over the last 10 years. The rest was more or less always trash. Croatia was never any good, they were just somewhat better than the rest. Position currently occupied by Spain.
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3 of the last 4 D2B gold medalists are in D2A together, that's weird lol
 
3 Minute Minor said:
3 of the last 4 D2B gold medalists are in D2A together, that's weird lol
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It just means that a bunch of teams are of similar strength and their bad generation can get relegated (Romania) or a good generation can get promoted (Serbia). Look at 1A, it's kinda similar situation, over the 9 years of existence it had 7 different winners. The difference is just that, in its case, those teams are in the same division and in the case of 2A, such similar teams are between 2A and 2B.
 
This started yesterday. Always enjoy following these tournaments among the lesser hockey nations. Gives you a great example of the reach hockey has with the different nations that have teams in the IIHF.
 
Yeah Serbia can more or less pack their bags. Honestly, feels like after today'a games this division will be cut and dry. Whoever wins the evening game takes 2nd place, Japan is clearly the best, Romania should be able to beat Spain for the 4th.
 
SoundAndFury said:
It just means that a bunch of teams are of similar strength and their bad generation can get relegated (Romania) or a good generation can get promoted (Serbia). Look at 1A, it's kinda similar situation, over the 9 years of existence it had 7 different winners. The difference is just that, in its case, those teams are in the same division and in the case of 2A, such similar teams are between 2A and 2B.
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Those 3 making it to/surviving D2A while South Korea is in D2B is weird. Can't spin don't care :laugh:
 
Well, who's the last decent player South Korea developed? *crickets*

It might be weird to you, it's a personal thing, nothing against it. But at the same time, it's not like it's some kind of accident they are there, that's where they belong, currently.
 
SoundAndFury said:
Was it not the case of you having one good generation and then it simply taking some time for things to shake out after the divisional restructure? As far as I can tell, Rendulic and Tomljenovic were the only decent players on those teams.

.
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Not so much due to divisional restrucutre, simply when players born in 90., 91., and 92. became too old we started to drop, because everybody knew upcoming generations are from bad to worse. One more reason why we were good is that many of players played abroad, check for example our U20 roster from 2011. I think it was nine players (with two missing due to injuries).
It was nice while it lasted. :)
 
I have to agree it's an unusual group. I know it's age group hockey and there are good and bad years but I've been following GB at all levels since the restructure and they have never played against Spain or Serbia and both are now in the group at the same time, along with Romania who are usually a weaker team at this level. Historically it has usually been Korea, Netherlands and Croatia in this group regularly.
 
Spain has been in this division 4/9 years. Now 5/10, basically, since their relegation is next to impossible.

Going back to business, GB with a deserved win over us so pretty everything is playing out the way everyone expected it to. Unless we lose to Romania but that shouldn't happen.
 
6 players with 2 points including 2 goals for Ando and Japan wins 8-0. Yu Sato got 25 minutes for head-butting.
 
Japan obviously didn't want to run up the score, it could have been 15-0 game if they really wanted to, feels like. Having said that, Ando was pretty unimpressive in this tournament.
 
Japan's looking good to start the tournament. Did I read a lot of people where high on Romania for this tournament? They're off to a slow start. Be interesting to see if they can get it together and qualify for promotion.
 
tony d said:
Japan's looking good to start the tournament. Did I read a lot of people where high on Romania for this tournament? They're off to a slow start. Be interesting to see if they can get it together and qualify for promotion.
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No, you did not :laugh: Romania was slotted in for a 4th place finish but seeing them play against GB right now they can definitely challenge for the 3rd. I think that's how far the highest pre-tournament expectations went as well.

All the talk in this thread was that they don't belong in the D2B.
 
HungryFrank said:
Serbia could make things complicated with a win today
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The chances of that happening are next to none. They are by the weakest team in the group and we disposed of the other similar level opponent (Spain) rather convincingly.

The only thing Serbia has going for them is their goalie who is legitimately good for this level.
 
In my opinion, this is the most boring tournament from all that have been played so far this year. No real intrigue of any kind, everything according to predictions made before the tournament.
 
Without Estonia this tournament is a little more lame
Japan & probably Italy next season have a pretty big edge on the GB/Lithuania and Romania, Serbia, Spain are just out of their depth

What use to be a 3-way battle for 1st is now a 1 man race with 2 teams hoping for a miracle and 3 teams wondering how 2 of them are staying in D2A
 
I have to say I had far bigger expectations for this group.. 3-2 against Serbia is pretty bad..
 
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