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Wjc 2025 Division 1b

tornaado66

Registered User
Dec 12, 2019
37
36
Tallinn, Estonia
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Estonias roster is as good as it can be as everyone accepted the invite. Most notable players are Maxim Burkov, David Timofejev and I have high hopes for the goalie Vladimirov. Estonia also has 11 returning skaters.

Estonia has to drop 3 more skaters from its roster and I predict they will be 08-09 born players. But still it seems like Estonia is gonna be by far the youngest team here.

I predict Estonia to be pretty much equal to Poland, Korea and maybe they will challenge Italy. Japan and Ukraine should be ahead of the rest.
 
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Will be cool to see Haponenko, Kosarev & Levshyn at the U20 level, they were all very strong last year at the D1A U18s. No Pazii will hurt but hoping for promotion this year for sure. Anyone know what Japans roster will look like?
 
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I'm not sure what exactly I expected from Ukraine when I was looking at eligible players around the globe a while back, but now that I see this roster come together I feel underwhelmed a bit. Still a good team, but I guess I wanted to feel more confident about their chances to get promoted.
 
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If you thought D2A camera angle in Zagreb was bad, then you wont like the angle in Tallinn. You cant see what is happening along the boards at the camera side at all. It is also an AI camera so the quality sucks.
Beware of what you are paying for!

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Anybody knows results of today´s games? I watched only first period of JPN - KOR game, it was 0:0 and Korea was little bit better team, spent more time in offensive zone, more shots.
 
Just checked the Italian roster, what a crap generation for them. Especially in contrast to last year's... No wonder they are losing friendlies to Estonia.

P.S. Also just had another chance to appreciate the fact that they only won 2 games with that roster last year... That also takes some kind of special talent.
 
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You can already tell the fight between Poland, Italy, Korea, and Estonia is going to be a mess.

Korea has the usual mystery team and the guys who carried them to this division last year turned out to be good-to-great BCHL players this season. Which of course doesn't matter since they have no returnees this year so it's a whole new mystery. From the little that I can tell their team is roughly based on their '22 U18 WC roster which did finish above Poland and Estonia.
 
Pretty impressive showing by Ukraine so far. Their goalie looks really sharp for this level, that bodes well for promotion.
 
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Levshyn is the real deal I think. He was the goalie that took them very close to promotion to the top level in U18s last year (lost in OT against Germany), and from memory he has like a .03 higher save percentage than the other goalie (who's a year older) on his OJHL team. Would be nice to eventually have a relatively high level goalie for Ukraine, since they are kinda lacking at that position on the men's team.
 
Some Japanese players seem to be stuck in the mud at times, I don't really understand. It's like they would rather watch while their teammates play.

All in all, great game by Korea defensively and on the offensive side they just took what was given to them. 2 clean breakaways and a random half-garbage goal Japanese goalie lets in from range.
 
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Very tight game between Ukraine and Poland after first 20 minutes.
 
Zero real scoring chances for either team in first almost half an hour of the game and then Ukraine pretty much wins it in 5 minutes. Shots 22:3 in favor of Ukraine in second period.
 
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So, Japan has to take the role of a litmus paper having played Korea, Estonia and Poland and it truly looks like Estonia is just significantly behind the rest this year.

Japan also disappoints, I don't see them beating Italy at this point, never mind Ukraine. To be fair, as I write this they are losing to Poland, so any talk about them being in contention might be over in one period's time.
 
The Ukrainian success is a case study in progress that proves the point I've been making for over a decade.
The war in Ukraine has forced (or rather enabled) their kids to play abroad also due in part to Norwegian charities, etc.
With the increase in adversity, level of competition and training methods, they are now flourishing and this will have a spillover effect at the senior level as well.

Almost all of their junior players are now playing abroad.
 
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Italy scored 2 goals on 3 shots. Levshin's Sv% regressing to the mean I guess.

Also I find it fascinating that Italy's leading scorer and one of the tournament's leading scorers is the kid you would think would be 3rd grade prospect even by Italy's standards without a single cap at a U18 level.
 
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SoundAndFury said:
Italy scored 2 goals on 3 shots. Levshin's Sv% regressing to the mean I guess.

Also I find it fascinating that Italy's leading scorer and one of the tournament's leading scorers is the kid you would think would be 3rd grade prospect even by Italy's standards without a single cap at a U18 level.
Click to expand...
Yeah, there's a 1.5 years younger Ukrainian D-man playing in the same Italian leagues with better numbers than Mbow
 
SoundAndFury said:
So, Japan has to take the role of a litmus paper having played Korea, Estonia and Poland and it truly looks like Estonia is just significantly behind the rest this year.

Japan also disappoints, I don't see them beating Italy at this point, never mind Ukraine. To be fair, as I write this they are losing to Poland, so any talk about them being in contention might be over in one period's time.
Click to expand...
I am obviously biased, but I believe Estonia has yet to play a game up to our level. If we eliminate the easy goals allowed then we are competitive. Powerplay and penalty kill is nonexistent, but in the friendlies it was there. Lets see what happens today, but I think it is too early to tell we are far behind.
 
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