I'm not sure what's up but every year it seems the U18 team does worse and worse as the prospects we produce get better and better.
We have the youngest team in the tournament. We shouldn't have the youngest team in the tournament. Also, a lot of players come from the same region...some are highly qualified and some are less than highly qualified. It's a bit sad but when I talked to coaches in the past of the U18 team they're like "it's D3 WM...who cares?" But with that attitude of course it's hard to ever leave D3 WM.
Over time I've kinda come to accept that the U18 WM doesn't really mean anything, at least as an indicator for our prospects. The only sad thing is that often times it's the last hockey of the season so agents are kinda on the fence about "is this guy ready to be set up with a CHL team" and they might come away from this tournament thinking they're not. Particularly, I wonder if this hurts Thomas Klassek's stock, because his draft year is next year, but an agent could come away from this thinking he's not ready for the CHL. And who knows, maybe he isn't, maybe another year would do him good.