World under 20 Div 1A 1B

[Fjorden]

Kazakhstan beat Denmark 5:2 in exhibition game, KHLer participated in every goal posting 2+3 in this game.

Kazakhstan might be a "dark horse" in this competition.
Definetly stronger than Slovenia and France.

The last game is Norway-Kazakhstan that might be a final.

Kazakhstan have a very good KHL player to watch out for.

Dinmukhamed Kaiyrzhan​

Dinmukhamed Kaiyrzhan at eliteprospects.com

 

[ozo]

Ukraine absolutely bossed around Italy. 4:0 flatters Italy to be fair, Clara for the first time showed me he is truly better than this level. Ukraine looked good even without NHL drafted Cholach and one or two possible additions. Japan is dangerous but promotion should absolutely be the aim for this bunch.

Feels pretty good for Ukraine and its fans in general. Every next year might be even better than this one if you can trust professional stats watcher like me lol. Lets pray Ukraine can actually concentrate on trivial thing like hockey again in no time.

 

[Switlo]

Feels pretty good for Ukraine and its fans in general. Every next year might be even better than this one if you can trust professional stats watcher like me lol. Let’s pray Ukraine can actually concentrate on trivial thing like hockey again in no time.

Great game from our guys. Real delight. Kovalchuk, Trakht, Sydorenko, Tsarkovsky. Also my eye test tells me they’ve played a bit of NA game. Much more physical and aggressive than Italians. Love it. I’d say I expected more from Italians, Clara was good but the team is meh.
We definitely must and will aim for promotion this year.

Thank you for your kind words Ozo.
We’ll win and overcome everything.

Slava Ukraini

 

[Fjorden]

Round 1 in div 1A

Hungary-Denmark 2-3 after overtime.
Surprised to see France win over Kazakhstan.
France-Kazakhstan 2-0

Slovenia-Norway: 0-4

I think Norway struggled a bit in the 1.period. (0-0). 2nd and 3rd period was very solid.
. We needed some time to adapt to the small rink(NA rink) as most of players are used to big ice in Sweden. The game gets more physical on NA ice, with more physical battles along the vent, and less time with the puck before the oponent gets up into you.. Slovenia handled those physical battles quite well in the 1st period.
In the 2nd and 3rd period Slovenia couldn't hang on in the game and got tired when we moved the puck faster, and took advantge of our deeper roster. But a good start this for team Norway.

 

[GagneHanson12]

Good win for Ukraine against Poland. I only caught the 2nd and 3rd period, but after Poland tied the game 2-2, Ukraine woke up so to speak and took the game over from there, winning 5-2.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Kazakhstan might be a "dark horse" in this competition.
Definetly stronger than Slovenia and France.

The last game is Norway-Kazakhstan that might be a final.

Kazakhstan have a very good KHL player to watch out for.

Dinmukhamed Kaiyrzhan​

Dinmukhamed Kaiyrzhan at eliteprospects.com

From the games we have seen so far Kazakhstan is actually pretty bad, goes without saying they lost to France already and in general, judging by the number of guys they have in the Kazakh league and by their production there, this generation is nothing special. Not especially impressed with Kaiyrzhan either in the context of this level, realistically were they Kazakh guys like Hadobas, Varga, Mahkovec, Torok, Gomboc, Carry, Perret would be playing in the KHL as well, to some capacity.

One guy I am impressed with is Clara. Not even so much with this play in the tournament so far but with how his season is going in general. I had my doubts at the start of the season and wrote in his prospects thread but at this point, starting Allsvenskan games at the age 17 is no joke for the prospect of any country, not to mention one playing in the D1 freaking B.

 

[ozo]

Ukraine looks like winning 1B this year. They have 8 different scorers from 9 goals so far, and it is no fluke - every line sort of threatens to score constantly. In both their games despite them not being crushing wins, Ukraine looks level above their competition, they play bigger, faster and meaner. After squandering the lead against Poland, I think they might have stumbled into better of two goalies in Artsatbanov or I'm just biased against anyone with WSHL (well sort of since Ogden Mustangs changed leagues) in his resume like is the case with Serdiuk.

All that said Asian teams are tough nut to crack so things can change drastically.

 

[crobro]

It’s amazing that Japan is at this level with all their players playing domestically

 

[SoundAndFury]

Ukraine looks like winning 1B this year.

You have touched on this before but that's especially impressive considering they have Tychenko, Pazii, Stetsyura, Trandafilov, Kriklya and of course Cholach not on the roster, all of whom I'd assume would improve this team. And even if they wouldn't in some cases, the depth they have is amazing.

 

[ozo]

You have touched on this before but that's especially impressive considering they have Tychenko, Pazii, Stetsyura, Trandafilov, Kriklya and of course Cholach not on the roster, all of whom I'd assume would improve this team. And even if they wouldn't in some cases, the depth they have is amazing.

They indeed are pretty deep for 1B standards and it sort of feels like every next year might just as deep if not deeper when I look at the kids in various youth leagues around the globe, but we still have to remember that IIHF junior hockey pyramid has lost two serious teams so subsequently every league this year is weaker than usually. Not sure if this roster would be able to cope with Hungary and Slovenia as these both teams would be playing in 1B if there was no war.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Not sure if this roster would be able to cope with Hungary and Slovenia as these both teams would be playing in 1B if there was no war.

Probably not but I'm talking more in light of the fact Ukraine is 27th in the IIHF ranking while their talent production is easily in the top-20 already despite both the country and their hockey structure living very tumultuous life over the last.. forever, really.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Also, the dominant Ukrainian win is even more impressive considering both looking at the roster and it's starting to show on the ice (this was in doubt for a little while) Italy is the 2nd best team in the division. Purdeller, Segafredo, 2 very solid Ds, Allsvenskan goalie, and they got demolished in that first game...

 

[loser]

I thought Italy is going to win that one, Purdeller was missing though, but Ukraine looked like men against boys. Expected guys from Alps, expecially from Cortina(De Bettin is also their coach), to be more competitive, not to dominate Ukraine but to play more evenly.

 

[loser]

Martin Johnsen(Norway) is out of the tournament with injury

Hungary is leading 1:0

 

[MeHateHe]

It’s amazing that Japan is at this level with all their players playing domestically

With a Canadian coach. Japan hired Perry Pearn, who had 10+ years of coaching success at the college level before 20 years as an assistant coach in various stints in the NHL (Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa among others). Pearn, always seen as a technical coach, has been hired to coach Japan's U18, U20 and senior teams for at least this season. It's an interesting hire: he's 71, so I don't know how well he relates to the kids these days.

 

[ozo]

With a Canadian coach. Japan hired Perry Pearn, who had 10+ years of coaching success at the college level before 20 years as an assistant coach in various stints in the NHL (Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa among others). Pearn, always seen as a technical coach, has been hired to coach Japan's U18, U20 and senior teams for at least this season. It's an interesting hire: he's 71, so I don't know how well he relates to the kids these days.

I'll be a downer here and say it doesn't matter that much. It is all about development at a very early stage, one can clearly see that Japan has more standout players than ever on this roster, in fact, so many that even ''meme superstars" like Iguchi are not on the roster. Estonia's relative success is entirely down to players on the ice not that Sasha Barkov's dad is coaching them now.

Coaches really matter when margins are very tight. It is easier to acknowledge incompetence than job well done at this level of hockey.

 

[MeHateHe]

I'll be a downer here and say it doesn't matter that much. It is all about development at a very early stage, one can clearly see that Japan has more standout players than ever on this roster, in fact, so many that even ''meme superstars" like Iguchi are not on the roster. Estonia's relative success is entirely down to players on the ice not that Sasha Barkov's dad is coaching them now.

Coaches really matter when margins are very tight. It is easier to acknowledge incompetence than job well done at this level of hockey.

Yes and no. One assumes that it really isn't a full-time permanent job to coach the three men's teams, so if the Japanese federation is smart, they'll be using the non-tournament time to work on technical development across the spectrum of the system - so there would be development of Japanese coaches as much as Japanese players. A lot of Canadian minor hockey associations, for example, use a head coaching model, so that all the coaches are operating from a single manual as it were. So, if that's the thinking in this case, there are certainly knock-on effects possible from hiring a single, experienced coach to coach the coaches.

I'll defer to you on the strength of the program in general, and I agree that player development will have happened long before any of these players got to the point of wearing a national team jersey.

But mostly I was commenting on this from the standpoint of this being an interesting hire. I don't know nearly enough about the Japanese program to know if this necessarily will make it better. 30 years ago, smaller, developing federations were hiring Canadian coaches regularly, but it's a lot more rare now. So I found it interesting that Japan did this, did this now, and did it with this particular coach.

 

[MeHateHe]

Sure seems like 1A is now Norway's to lose. When is the last time Norway was in the elite U20 tournament?

 

[ozo]

whent

Yes and no. One assumes that it really isn't a full-time permanent job to coach the three men's teams, so if the Japanese federation is smart, they'll be using the non-tournament time to work on technical development across the spectrum of the system - so there would be development of Japanese coaches as much as Japanese players. A lot of Canadian minor hockey associations, for example, use a head coaching model, so that all the coaches are operating from a single manual as it were. So, if that's the thinking in this case, there are certainly knock-on effects possible from hiring a single, experienced coach to coach the coaches.

I'll defer to you on the strength of the program in general, and I agree that player development will have happened long before any of these players got to the point of wearing a national team jersey.

But mostly I was commenting on this from the standpoint of this being an interesting hire. I don't know nearly enough about the Japanese program to know if this necessarily will make it better. 30 years ago, smaller, developing federations were hiring Canadian coaches regularly, but it's a lot more rare now. So I found it interesting that Japan did this, did this now, and did it with this particular coach.

All good faith from me, good sir. All you say is valid up to a certain point imo, but I guess I don't see a single nation with vision of improving their national teams across the board. Even the last OG host China simply naturalized whoever was available and didn't bother with real development across the board.

 

[hockey20000]

Sure seems like 1A is now Norway's to lose. When is the last time Norway was in the elite U20 tournament?

2014 and 2011.

 

[MeHateHe]

2014 and 2011.

Thx. IIHF's website was being finicky with me

 

[swissexpert]

Thx. IIHF's website was being finicky with me

Nah, that site is just crap

 

[SoundAndFury]

Yeah, IIHF site is borderline unusable, eliteprospects and hydra reports basically cover all the needs and are just way better to use.

Going back to business, I would love Hungary to stay up. They really gave their best every game and made every one of those competitive. They actually held the lead at some point in every game before today and they have some very good prospects too.

Shame they are like going to get relegated over Denmark who took their OT win in game one and are happy to get pummeled by everyone afterward.

 

[Namejs]

Yeah, IIHF site is borderline unusable, eliteprospects and hydra reports basically cover all the needs and are just way better to use.

Going back to business, I would love Hungary to stay up. They really gave their best every game and made every one of those competitive. They actually held the lead at some point in every game before today and they have some very good prospects too.

Shame they are like going to get relegated over Denmark who took their OT win in game one and are happy to get pummeled by everyone afterward.

Is Denmark experiencing a downturn with likely consequences for their national team over the long term or is this just a bit of a hiccup for their programme?

They would be playing in I B if it wasn't for Russia/Belarus not being there.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Is Denmark experiencing a downturn with likely consequences for their national team over the long term or is this just a bit of a hiccup for their programme?

To be fair, Danish fans have been talking about this for years, they too seem to think few superstars covered the fact that their program isn't actually any good, fundamentally. At this point, it seems like a sure thing they will be going down to 1-2 NHLers after Eller retires.

I think the truth is in the middle (much like with Norway over the last 10 years or so). I really can't imagine they are 1B team from now on.

Hungary, meanwhile, prove in yet another game they can play against anyone in this division (as it is now).