Last 9 years - FIN, CAN, USA - 3 golds each

[violaswallet]

International hockey at men's level is a joke.

"Nothing ended up coming of the US’s world junior victories in 2004, 2010 or 2013 for example."

A boat load of NHL talent ended up coming out of that. I'd call that success.

Yep: the 2010 Silver as well. In 2014, we played Canada the closest; it was a shame we met so early.

We were definitely hurt by 2018 not being played: prime Kane plus the holdovers from the mid 80s and insane late 90s bunch (Eichel, Matthew’s) never got a chance!

 

[Jaska]

Any time you impose a restriction on a team's pool of players, it affects the smaller countries more acutely.

This is very true. An example: Finland has only two top line NHL centers: Aho and Barkov. Missing one or both is a big obstacle for having success.

 

[MMANumminen]

Russia:

Russia's 0-3-4 is not that bad either

 

[Past Considerations]

But only Finland also has one relegation round appearance.

 

[Nihiliste]

What’s going on with Russia’s junior program

 

[karhukissa]

In all honesty Finland's success should be studied. They brought enough hustle to match Canada's obvious depth and that is what gave them this success. And yes, it doesn't fully translate into success at men's level but it shows that when 19 year olds play you can beat talent with workrate. I for myself figured out now the reason why so many players who play great at WJC's never make the NHL, it is because amazingly enough playing against the best U20 players you can compensate lack of talent with hustle and that allows some players to be competitive. For some reason it only works until certain age.

It's not a rocket science. Finland created a playstyle few years ago with our leading hockey thinkers and coaches (Westerlund&Jalonen mainly). This playstyle is something that our adult team and all junior national teams usually play (last year was an exception, team was poorly coached).

It's based on puck control and it's very versatile and can be changed a lot based on situation. Many times Finland slows the pace of the game and gains control (2nd period of SWE game is prime example).

Everyone on the ice knows exactly what they are supposed to do and play as a unit. Finland won 2019 WHC with Liiga team because of this. And also every Finnish team usually have a great team spirit which is vital for this playstyle.

And when you combine this playstyle which is a backbone for everything with some high end talent (Lundell&Heinola / Laine&Aho&Rantanen) you can see the result.