WJC domination may be a good indicator of future senior success

[Snippit]

From 2002 to 2009, Canada won 5 gold medals and 3 silvers at the World Juniors, including 5 straight golds from 2005 to 2009.

Players on these rosters include:

- Crosby
- Weber
- Toews
- Getzlaf
- Tavares
- Duchene
- Perry
- Bergeron
- Carter
- Doughty
- Stamkos
- Benn
- Pietrangelo
- Burns
- Nash
- Marchand

These players listed have made up the core of recent Canadian teams.

Now, in the period of 2010-now, we know Canada has dominated internationally, winning the last two best-on-bests, possibly a third, and for good measure the last two World Championships. In other words, a period of World Junior dominance from 2002 to 2009 was followed by a period of senior dominance since 2010.

We know that Canada has not dominated at the junior level since 2010. People will point to the fact that Canada isn't allowed to ice their very best team, but Canada has also sent some pretty dire rosters to this tournament (2014, 2016), and missed out huge during the lockout in 2014.

Canada's won one, Russia 1, Sweden 1, Finland 2, USA 2.

Perhaps this may be an indicator that the senior playing field will be a lot more level in the future. Finland's producing some elite talent (Aho, Barkov, Laine, Risto) and USA has an U23 group right now that rivals or is better than Canada's (Matthews, Eichel, Larkin, Gaudreau, Hanifin, Werenski, Trouba, Parayko, Jones, Gostisbehere, Saad)

I personally think this generation of young Canadian players (McDavid, Mackinnon, Johansen, Ekblad, Reinhart, Monahan, Scheifele, Drouin, RNH, Rielly, Bennett, Domi, Murray) is not at the same level as those Canadian forwards from 2002 to 2009. I don't think they will ever be the de facto #1 in the world as that group is right now, and that we will look back on them as a golden generation for Canada.

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[um]

I hope you're right, this current era is getting boring with Canada's dominance.

 

[Hynh]

It's too early to judge on a lot of the U24 brigade. Many of them are still establishing themselves. Keith, Weber and Seabrook were rookies in 2006 and Doughty was an OHL rookie. That's 4 of your 7 defencemen in 2010.

Also, doesn't Parayko play for Canada?

 

[JackSlater]

Not sure. When USA won the 1996 World Cup, none of its players had ever won the WJC. When Czech Republic won the 1998 Olympic tournament, none of its players had won the WJC. When Sweden won the 2006 Olympic tournament, none of its players had won the WJC.

Producing elite players indicates future success. This usually translates into success at the WJC, but not always. The Czechs are a good example. The most successful Czech generation at the senior level never won the WJC. The most successful Czech generation at the junior level has never been a threat at the best on best level.

 

[Slapper]

Us Finns sure hope so!