HFLeafs WJC Pool, Year 2

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I was going to pick Meralainen the pick after you took him, and thought about Clang, but I think it's likely all 3 of them and Latkoczy get 1 win each. Meralainen against Austria(back to back after they face Czech Republic to open), and Clang against Slovakia(back to back after they open against Russia)

Yeah I think upside it's either Merilainen or Latkoczy just because there's speculation Merilainen may split the qualifiers & Slovakia could pull an upset as they're legitimately a good team. Clang or USA's backup are the only other reasonable options unless you wanna risk Russia not playing Askarov every game.
 
William Eklund
Kasper Simontaival
Sasha Pustujov
Alexander Pashin
Elliot Desnoyers
Ty Smilanic

Simon Nimec
Donovan Sebrango
Yegor Savikov

Dylan Garand

My team is pretty bad. Eklund needs to go McDavid for me to have a chance lol. I liked my team last year more. It's amazing I didn't finish last despite losing Dach to injury.
 
Didn't wanna go with Bischel if you were going with a Swiss D?

Just randomly searched a few smaller teams threads and saw some projected lineups of SWI that have him on the first pairing so thought why not.

Total punt pick at this point hoping he can possibly put up like 1 goal, 2 assists in a best case scenario.
 
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With weems' pick done, we're fully updated guys. Thanks for the awesome draft. If anything changes we'll do a replacement draft pick. If I don't see it myself, please let me know.

Hopefully your teams all do much better than you expect... but I still win gold.
 
William Eklund
Kasper Simontaival
Sasha Pustujov
Alexander Pashin
Elliot Desnoyers
Ty Smilanic

Simon Nimec
Donovan Sebrango
Yegor Savikov

Dylan Garand

My team is pretty bad. Eklund needs to go McDavid for me to have a chance lol. I liked my team last year more. It's amazing I didn't finish last despite losing Dach to injury.

Tbh your forwards are pretty solid. Not sexy names besides Eklund, but a lot of guys that can be low-key impact players. Simontaival is on the top-line (and assumed top-PP) on a team that should have guaranteed 2, maybe 3 blowout wins. Pastujov and Pashin are top-6 guys on a big-5 team and will see PP time. Desnoyers and Similanic idk what will happen, but I picked Desnoyers in the other pool before Candada moved Bourgault and Bourque up in the linup zzzz. Nemec is great, but might not be top-PP anymore. Should still be in most of the points the Slovaks get. The other two are decent bets to put up at least a few points. Gotta hope Garand steals the job from Cossa.

You have a team that can win it all. You just need Eklund to play like himself, and your other guys to play above their current opportunities.
 
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I specifically avoided the Russian team this year, as I had 3 players last year and they all burned me. Not that it means that it would happen again, so that decision could really bite me. But I find them so unpredictable.

I'm always a fan of loading up on some Canadian forwards. Not only for cheering purposes, but Canada has those games where they score in the double digits and you see multiple forwards have 3 or 4 point games. Those add up.

I think the teams are really even this year so it will be very competitive. I really like Canada4Gold's trio of Beniers-Johnson-Coronato, hockeynorth's trio of McTavish-Olausson-Lambert and Morgs' trio of Perfetti-Knies-Lysell. I'm very big on goaltending, so essentially Weems, Maplebeasts, SeaofBlue, (Myself :D) and one of sticky111/hockeynorth (whoever carries the load for Canada) are favourites in my books. But you never know. LeafsOHLRangers98 has unreal defence and solid talent everywhere else. TheBeastCoast may have the top player in the tournament in Holtz while also having a top 3 overall dman, both who should carry that team far.

There, I think I mentioned everyone. Looking forward to it!
 
Tbh your forwards are pretty solid. Not sexy names besides Eklund, but a lot of guys that can be low-key impact players. Simontaival is on the top-line (and assumed top-PP) on a team that should have guaranteed 2, maybe 3 blowout wins. Pastujov and Pashin are top-6 guys on a big-5 team and will see PP time. Desnoyers and Similanic idk what will happen, but I picked Desnoyers in the other pool before Candada moved Bourgault and Bourque up in the linup zzzz. Nemec is great, but might not be top-PP anymore. Should still be in most of the points the Slovaks get. The other two are decent bets to put up at least a few points. Gotta hope Garand steals the job from Cossa.

You have a team that can win it all. You just need Eklund to play like himself, and your other guys to play above their current opportunities.
Thanks for the analysis. That makes me feel better. I think Simontaival is a big ex factor for me. If he gets the expected opportunities, and Hirvonen's line dominates, thats good for me. I agree I need Garand to steal Cossa's net.
 
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Team @hockeynorth
Position#Player NameCountryGPGAWSOPool Points
F Anton LundellFinland764------10
F Alexander HoltzSweden512------3
F Arthur KaliyevUnited States735------8
F Yegor ChinakhovRussia510------1
F Noel GunlerSweden541------5
F Martin ChromiakSlovakia510------1
D Shakir MukhamadullinRussia700------0
D Semyon ChistyakovRussia703------3
D Braden SchneiderCanada612------3
G Kari PiironenFinland600419
Totals------------17174143
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

This was my team last year… where I got my goalie in the replacement draft. You never know what happens.
 
PP-1
Helge Grans - point
Alexander Holtz - left
Oskar Olausson - right
Theodor Niederbach
William Eklund
PP-2
Emil Andrae - point
Fabian Lysell - left
Isak Rosén - right
Daniel Ljungman
Åke Stakkestad

LOL. f***ing Monten
 
Meriläinen starting vs USA. Might not mean much, but who knows

lucifer-smile.gif
 
Also super upset I didn't take Maenpaa in either pool. 1C for Finland with Raty out. Saw him listed as an extra F so i had him ranked as basically my last F (with guys like Gut), but his NHLe was basically ahead of every F on Finland. Releasing the lines after the draft, ffs
 
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Meriläinen starting vs USA. Might not mean much, but who knows

lucifer-smile.gif

I think it means he is the backup. Teams are probably not playing their starters today. USA played Silverstein. Good for him earning the USA backup job as an 04', although it is not like they had anyone else in that age group (besides Holt, who they didn't even invite).

I feel like we are going to read into these lines a lot but they seem so backwards TBH. The only one that seems somewhat plausible is probably Sweden, but that is only because Sweden's coach is backwards on a normal day.

Even Maenpaa, I seriously considered, but he was being used as a 4th liner/extra for much of Finland's practices, etc. I feel like a lot of teams are just evaluating some fringe guys in key spots. I guess now is the time to try things out, but I wouldn't be shocked if it looks a lot different (at least with some of the non-key guys) in the real games.
 
I think it means he is the backup. Teams are probably not playing their starters today. USA played Silverstein. Good for him earning the USA backup job as an 04', although it is not like they had anyone else in that age group (besides Holt, who they didn't even invite).

I feel like we are going to read into these lines a lot but they seem so backwards TBH. The only one that seems somewhat plausible is probably Sweden, but that is only because Sweden's coach is backwards on a normal day.

Even Maenpaa, I seriously considered, but he was being used as a 4th liner/extra for much of Finland's practices, etc. I feel like a lot of teams are just evaluating some fringe guys in key spots. I guess now is the time to try things out, but I wouldn't be shocked if it looks a lot different (at least with some of the non-key guys) in the real games.

Commesso and Merilainen started for their teams. Silverstein and Blomqvist came in later in the games
 
Commesso and Merilainen started for their teams. Silverstein and Blomqvist came in later in the games

Plus Askarov is starting for Russia. I'm assuming we're gonna see Merilainen game 1, and probably a split until the QF's.
 
Russia playing Yurov in the position he's most used to playing in the KHL, benchwarmer. Smart :rolleyes:

Going to get less ice time this entire year then some guys in the OHL got last year which was none. He barely plays in the KHL and looks to be on the outs here too.

I feel like he's going to be the Abramov for me this year. The WTF aren't you playing this guy guy.
 
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Russia playing Yurov in the position he's most used to playing in the KHL, benchwarmer. Smart :rolleyes:

Going to get less ice time this entire year then some guys in the OHL got last year which was none. He barely plays in the KHL and looks to be on the outs here too.

I feel like he's going to be the Abramov for me this year. The WTF aren't you playing this guy guy.

At least he was a lottery guy for you. I've got the only player Canada is benching, and it makes no damn sense.
 
Jk I didn't realize how early he went

I don't have him here. He went too early. Your point stands on my pool but it's still annoying as a fan. The guy has barely played all season, he finally gets to play against his peers and they're doing it to him here too.
 
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