Dominik Badinka simply didn't make the team, the coaches decided to pick different defensemen. I am OK with their decision. I suppose he was one of the players on the edge. The real pity is the absence of Dvořák who declined due to personal reasons (wich might be really whatever, we know nothing about his personal life). What may be surprising is the absence of Pérez, they apparently deciced to include more physical, tough guys on the roster. I think it is pretty apparent that the plan has been to have a group of offensively highly skilled forwards (Kulich, Šalé, Becher, Rymon, Sapoušek) accompanied by some well skating/physical ones who can add extra energy (Slavíček, Melovský, Přibyl, Hujer, Židlický), and then of course there is Šapovaliv who is kind of both. The roster looks good overall. The only slight doubt I have is if the defense will be physically strong and solid enough. There is Marek Alscher who certainly is a big, physical player, but the others are rather offensively minded defensemen, good with the puck, capable of making creative passes, but I am not completely sure how they will manage their own zone, especially the room around the net. Otherwise the team looks really fine.
As I have written many times, I only saw Badinka in the national team and I did not see him play a single game at the level I expected from him.
Benák was not really an option. They tried him in Extraliga for Plzeň and it was obvious he still needs to wait one year to be able to play men's hockey, and the WJC would be the same case. He's got a big talent but needs to become stronger, especially with his upper body, and also improve some aspects of positional game. I mean, his positional game is very good when he is facing guys of his age, but when the game becomes faster and physically more demanding, he is getting a bit lost on the ice. He needs to really adopt some patterns of playing without the puck, so that he doesn't have to think about them all the time and does them automatically. This is the case with many, I would say the majority of talented young players, so no problem for him, but he isn't yet ready for this tournament this year.Jecho is injured, Perez is a substitute (I'm also surprised that he's not there when there are some others), Benák.. sorry, but it was clear that when they didn't nominate him for the last tournament (where they could test him for the first time in this category) ), so they will definitely not take him to the championship
I think Badinka could easily be there, but I consider the defensemen who are there no worse than him. He could be an option and nothing bad would happen, but it isn't so the the defense would be doomed without him. The absence of Dvořák is a bigger issue indeed. Players like Cibulka, Port, Galvas are all very good in playmaking on the offensive blue, but they can have problems with the own zone coverage. It will be up to the coaches to come with such a system those defensemen will be suitable for.
I assume you don't care much because Hrabal is gonna be the clear cut starter anyway but from the outside, the goalie selection behind him seems kinda weird. Czechia has many great goalie prospects and I don't know how you can come to the conclusion that those two are your best options. One has been kinda underwhelming for Kamloops last season from what I heard and the other one is struggling for OHL Sudbury this season. Certainly an interesting decision to select those two if you could also go with the Q's best goalie this season or 2 of the 3 best goalies in the entire CHL...among others. I admit I don't know any details about the Spunar injury...but even if he's unavailable I think Czechia would have had much better options
I am completely not excited. The nomination is weird and I am dissapointed.
All good points... Are Perez and Dvorak from Liberec who the coach coached? Wonder what is going on if so.
I'm repeating myself, I know.. Sorry, I can really only evaluate Badinka from the national team and he played so "well" there that the coach withdrew him for the last third, he didn't play the next match at all and then the coach complained that some players didn't even notice, that they play for the national team. He just played horribly in the national team and I wrote about it here repeatedly. Would he be better than Kočí? Maybe, but the coach saw it exactly the same way.
Dvořák was invited an declined. Either he had serious and understandable reasons (I hope so) or he is simply an idiot (hopefully not). Pérez is offically the fist forward "below the line", for the case somebody gets injured lat minute (hopefully not).
In terms of type, he may be a bit of Lauko's style, but he is a disproportionately worse player. I can't imagine him ever playing in the NHL.
Of course Židlický is no future NHLer, that would be a complete miracle. But neither is WJC nearly any NHL level competition. Possibly majority of the players will never have a game in the NHL, even from the teams Canada, United States, Sweden. I would be surprised if more than, say, 5-6 players from this Czech roster would ever have at least a couple of NHL appearances. Most of them will probably have average/decent careers in Europe. Normal in junior hockey. So, Židlický might take the Lauko role at the WJC level. I remember quite a bunch of players taking similar role in the past at taking it decent, later they became average Extraliga players at best.
Zidlicky is not good enough for NT, same for Hujer, sorry points are not everything but players even the completely defensive ones (who are considered above average) are close to .ppg at Hujer age in those leagues. 0,5 is simply not good enough. And Zidlicky is in the OHL third season already and made exactly zero progress during that time. He maybe can have some qualities, but we can surely find a player with the same qualities, which can also be more productive in the front.
Well, I'm Swiss so I'm completely neutral here but I do follow the CHL quite a bit and at least the goalie selection is certainly a shocker. From a neutral point I don't think there are many reasons two select those two goalies who got pretty much nothing but lit up in the CHL. On the other hand, Jakub Milota is, in my humble view, the Q's top goaltender this season and could go fairly early in the upcoming draft. Lukas Matecha is even better than Milota. Incredibly consistent and dominant goalie. A top5 goalie in the entire CHL, in my view even top4. I don't think there's much if anything at all between Matecha and Jan Spunar this season performance wise. Of course the latter should be on the team as well if there's even a slight chance of him playing during the WJC20.
You are saying points are not everything but still You are evaluating players based almost solely on points production ...
I just hope we don't end up like the Slovaks last year. The absolute best goalkeeper (even according to statistics) was not originally nominated at all, and Gajan got into the team only when the original number one failed completely. Hrabal should be fine, I hope the rest of the nominees aren't some behind the scenes game..Well, I'm Swiss so I'm completely neutral here but I do follow the CHL quite a bit and at least the goalie selection is certainly a shocker. From a neutral point I don't think there are many reasons two select those two goalies who got pretty much nothing but lit up in the CHL. On the other hand, Jakub Milota is, in my humble view, the Q's top goaltender this season and could go fairly early in the upcoming draft. Lukas Matecha is even better than Milota. Incredibly consistent and dominant goalie. A top5 goalie in the entire CHL, in my view even top4. I don't think there's much if anything at all between Matecha and Jan Spunar this season performance wise. Of course the latter should be on the team as well if there's even a slight chance of him playing during the WJC20.
The only reason I can come up with is that the coaching staff has already crowned Hrabal as their undisputed nr.1 and either just wants to avoid a goalie controversy by not selecting viable alternatives to Hrabal or they just didn't want to select goalies that are doing well for their respective clubs to warm the bench or eat nachos in the pressbox. After all, a selection for the WJC20 plus preparation camp means you're gonna miss many games of your team. If Hrabal is the clear nr.1, the backup most certainly won't play more than two games, maybe even just one.
That's a bold strategy of course. If something happens to Hrabal or if he somehow gets rattled (you never know) then you're in trouble.
If it helps, our idiot coaches selected two completely useless goalies as well without an actual need to do so. So Swiss coaches are certainly not better than yours
Ewan Huet is fine (not great) but the other two are even worse than the ones you selected. Beglieri is a CHL failure as well and Grüter is a joke anyway. We have many good 06 born goalies but maybe coaches are just afraid to select young goalies and that's why Milota and the Swiss 06 kids didn't get selected.
I find this is a Czech tradtion. I'm not kidding when I say I expect Schatniger to start the QF.lol It's how we do things. To me, the goalies couldn't be wrong yet here we are.Well, I'm Swiss so I'm completely neutral here but I do follow the CHL quite a bit and at least the goalie selection is certainly a shocker. From a neutral point I don't think there are many reasons two select those two goalies who got pretty much nothing but lit up in the CHL. On the other hand, Jakub Milota is, in my humble view, the Q's top goaltender this season and could go fairly early in the upcoming draft. Lukas Matecha is even better than Milota. Incredibly consistent and dominant goalie. A top5 goalie in the entire CHL, in my view even top4. I don't think there's much if anything at all between Matecha and Jan Spunar this season performance wise. Of course the latter should be on the team as well if there's even a slight chance of him playing during the WJC20.
The only reason I can come up with is that the coaching staff has already crowned Hrabal as their undisputed nr.1 and either just wants to avoid a goalie controversy by not selecting viable alternatives to Hrabal or they just didn't want to select goalies that are doing well for their respective clubs to warm the bench or eat nachos in the pressbox. After all, a selection for the WJC20 plus preparation camp means you're gonna miss many games of your team. If Hrabal is the clear nr.1, the backup most certainly won't play more than two games, maybe even just one.
That's a bold strategy of course. If something happens to Hrabal or if he somehow gets rattled (you never know) then you're in trouble.
If it helps, our idiot coaches selected two completely useless goalies as well without an actual need to do so. So Swiss coaches are certainly not better than yours
Ewan Huet is fine (not great) but the other two are even worse than the ones you selected. Beglieri is a CHL failure as well and Grüter is a joke anyway. We have many good 06 born goalies but maybe coaches are just afraid to select young goalies and that's why Milota and the Swiss 06 kids didn't get selected.
