U20: D1B in Tychy, Poland (8/12 - 14/12 2018)

[swissexpert]

So this one starts tomorrow and I haven't found a thread so here we are.

IIHF - Home 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey U20 World Championship DIVISION I, Group B

The iihf is doing a horrible job with this new website, simply awful.

A day before opening match:
No Rosters, No News, No past tournamemts available in the archive.


Enough rage, should be quite an interesting group, Japan promoted from IIA, Hungary relegated from IA but i would call the favourites to go up again.
Slovenia (don't know if Drozg is released) and Poland could ice strong teams as well.

E: could a mod please change the title? I wrote 2A instead of 1B...

Click to read more...

 

[ozo]

Yeah, would be easier to predict the outcome of this tournament if rosters were easily accessible...

 

[kabidjan18]

I believe you can change the thread title yourself?

Here are the entry lists for each team.
2019 IIHF Ice Hockey U20 World Championship Div I Group B
Thank Maverick41 for being an awesome guy and providing us with the links.

Hungary will probably win, but Slovenia might contest.

 

[swissexpert]

I believe you can change the thread title yourself?

Here are the entry lists for each team.
2019 IIHF Ice Hockey U20 World Championship Div I Group B
Thank Maverick41 for being an awesome guy and providing us with the links.

Hungary will probably win, but Slovenia might contest.

It took a while but I finally found out how to change the title. It's not a post edit, it's under 'thread tools'.

Thanks for the link, I wish the iihf could just use the old website instead of this mobile-adjusted weirdness.

 

[SoundAndFury]

I noticed Italy won against Slovenia 4-0 during friendly a month ago or so. How did that happen?

Quite interesting that both Slovenia and Italy are bringing almost the same team as last year.

 

[swissexpert]

Italy also beat France in that 4-nations cup, they're not that bad.
Most of them play in the AlpsHL and in Swiss Juniors.

 

[ozo]

Japan brings uncharacteristically young team. They are notorious for bringing oldest team possible to these tournaments so this is refreshing to see as well. Ukraine looks really poor besides couple of players so it will be a rough year for them.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Italy also beat France in that 4-nations cup, they're not that bad.

Italy brought almost the same team last year and was just terrible. Sure they grew up a year but still.

 

[ozo]

Ukraine looks like the better side against Poland, largely thanks to Morozov and Peresunko, but it still counts.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Poland also has a pretty weak generation, nothing similar to last year's team. These guys managed to blow promotion game against Estonia at U18 level.. Other than Hungary on the top this is going to be a really interesting tournament.

 

[ozo]

Ukraine's WSHL goalie is throwing this one away by letting pucks go through him...

 

[Gianpaolo]

I noticed Italy won against Slovenia 4-0 during friendly a month ago or so. How did that happen?.

New coaching stuff and a much better goalkeeper than last year.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Well, friendlies aside, in the tournament game shots after 1 period are 16-1 Slovenia.

3-0 in the end, 2nd period was pretty even but Slovenians were better in 1 and 3. Very disciplined game by them, very attentive defensively. The gap between them and bottom 4 is probably going to be bigger than I expected.

 

[Gianpaolo]

Well, friendlies aside, in the tournament game shots after 1 period are 16-1 Slovenia.

3-0 in the end, 2nd period was pretty even but Slovenians were better in 1 and 3. Very disciplined game by them, very attentive defensively. The gap between them and bottom 4 is probably going to be bigger than I expected.

The most remarkable fact comes out comparing the roster of Slovenia with the roster of Italy. Jan Drozg (QJMHL) is the superstar in the team, but 15 players are active in the Alps Hockey League, the same league as 11 Italian players. Italy had yesterday also 5 guys from Swiss Junior, 2 from German Junior and 1 from Finnish Junior. So where comes the big gap from?

 

[ozo]

My way too early prediction is that Japan will go down this year, their youthfulness will be their downfall. Really liked Italian keeper yesterday, he looked better than 1B level for sure.

 

[ozo]

My way too early prediction is that Japan will go down this year, their youthfulness will be their downfall. Really liked Italian keeper yesterday, he looked better than 1B level for sure, he will keep Italy in games on his own.

 

[SoundAndFury]

The most remarkable fact comes out comparing the roster of Slovenia with the roster of Italy. Jan Drozg (QJMHL) is the superstar in the team, but 15 players are active in the Alps Hockey League, the same league as 11 Italian players. Italy had yesterday also 5 guys from Swiss Junior, 2 from German Junior and 1 from Finnish Junior. So where comes the big gap from?

Well it's not only about the league people play in it's also about how they perform in it. Playing for something like Fassa which has 1 regulation win in 19 games isn't the same as playing for Slovenian teams that are in the upper mid-tier so to speak. Berger is the only one really solid Alps league player on the team meanwhile Slovenians have a few of those (Svetina, Urukalo, etc.) plus Drozg.

And that's even more so when it comes to playing in junior leagues abroad. Just playing there doesn't mean anything. Someone like Deluca is being hyped but is just flat out not good at this level. DNL is any good at all at this point it's in no way a step up compared to playing in Slovenia, for example.

I will agree about Fadani though, he looked pretty good.

 

[kabidjan18]

Deluca wasn't bad. Just Slovenia was better. First of all, it was a boring game, a lot of long shots and until the last period not many great chances. The whole game was basically played in the Italian zone, but the slovenians couldn't execute the cycle or get the puck in front of the net or even get a screen on the net. The Italian coach was also silly to not have Spinell in front of the net like in Davos but rather in the high slot and put Pechlaner in front of the net. The slovenian goaltender was great but he was too active in the crease, a better team would have exposed that.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Uneventful day, favorites win. Hungary put 63 shots on Ukrainian net, that's a pretty interesting piece of trivia.

 

[Scouter]

My way too early prediction is that Japan will go down this year, their youthfulness will be their downfall. Really liked Italian keeper yesterday, he looked better than 1B level for sure.

Well Japan played a close game with Hungary, whereas Ukraine got destroyed by Hungary, so I'd say Ukraine are most likely to go down.

 

[Marky1999]

Imagine being 3-0 up and then losing 9-3. Sounds like match fixing

 

[Urbanskog]

Imagine being 3-0 up and then losing 9-3. Sounds like match fixing

Ukraine was up by two goals until Hungary scored their first. But no, it does not. The maximum stakes for events of this caliber this are pathetically low.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Imagine being 3-0 up and then losing 9-3. Sounds like match fixing

Ukraine was only up 2-0. And it happens every day in pro hockey what to even talk in junior. Even yesterday a similar scenario happened to both Hungary and Belarus. Sounds like you are paranoid.

 

[SoundAndFury]

So today Ukraine plays versus Japan, likely for the relegation. The team which loses is definitely behind the 8ball.

 

[ozo]

So today Ukraine plays versus Japan, likely for the relegation. The team which loses is definitely behind the 8ball.

Indeed, maybe will watch this over our game in 1A, want to know if Morozov and Peresunko will be enough to fight of relegation for Ukraine. Also need to this see 2001 born Nakajima, who has scored or assisted on each of Japan's 4 goals so far, maybe Iguchi is not a solo act down the road .