Filip Hronek is really an absolute top class D, he was shoulders above the rest of the D's tonight. And Michael Špaček... I am a bit wondering why he never made a career in the NHL. He is fast, creative, confident on the puck. Overall, this year the Czech team has giant chance to take one of the medals. With all the teams being affected by the COVID-19 situation, which resulted into this whole strange season, bubbles, players being really tired of it and wanting to take some family holiday etc., the Czech team looks to me as the last affected of the traditional top 7 together with Switzerland. For example US is looking really like they struggled to even put a roster together and I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make it to the QF. Canada looks a bit better but still, their roster can't compare to those from previous couple of years. Sweden will rely mainly on European players plus a few NA additions as well. Finland the same. Russia looks relatively good chiefly because they have comparably a lot of really very good players in their KHL. I see Russia as perhaps the biggest favourite, and then CZE, FIN, SWE, CAN, SUI are all looking pretty equal. US looks significatly weaker to me this exceptional year, and other teams are really different tiers.
Of course this tournament is going to be somehow less relevant when it comes to real hockey potential of the competing countries because this COVID season has really been strange from the beginning to the end. But at least some decent international hockey after the cancellation last year.