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World under 20 Div 2A 2B

Maybe Lithuania's win would make Estonia try harder in their remaining matches in 1B as Estonia and Lithuania are always competing against each other in ice hockey.
 
Pardus said:
Maybe Lithuania's win would make Estonia try harder in their remaining matches in 1B as Estonia and Lithuania are always competing against each other in ice hockey.
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I'm afraid those days are further and further behind us, sadly... Estonia is at least holding on to their positions while we have problems fighting off Spain these days...
 
SoundAndFury said:
I'm afraid those days are further and further behind us, sadly... Estonia is at least holding on to their positions while we have problems fighting off Spain these days...
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At least your men's national team stays competitive now because of the Latvian league. Maybe you can also (re)create some sort of junior developing system with Latvia like ~10 years ago when your best juniors played in Energija and Metalurgs Liepaja.

Estonia has been really benefitting of U16 and U18 teams playing in Finland.

Congrats to Croatia!

Shame on you team GB.
 
Pardus said:
At least your men's national team stays competitive now because of the Latvian league. Maybe you can also (re)create some sort of junior developing system with Latvia like ~10 years ago when your best juniors played in Energija and Metalurgs Liepaja.
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Those are some positive steps for sure but the other countries aren't just waiting for us either, Ukraine and Japan are going to come back in a big way at the men's level. It will be survival mode after Armalis retires.
 
aquaregia said:
That Mack Stewart miss sums it all up
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This was probably the most absurd miss I have ever seen. Imo worse than the famous Hemsky empty net fiasco. I have given up hope of seeing Grubb sacked, but maybe one or two more embarrassing loses like this and it could actually happen.
 
SoundAndFury said:
Those are some positive steps for sure but the other countries aren't just waiting for us either, Ukraine and Japan are going to come back in a big way at the men's level. It will be survival mode after Armalis retires.
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Im super high on the bunch of kids now playing Swiss system. Purely from statwatching they seem like serious prospects with pro career ahead of them. Also Lubys is not the worst of backups to fall back upon when the time comes if he continues playing.


SoundAndFury said:
I'm afraid those days are further and further behind us, sadly... Estonia is at least holding on to their positions while we have problems fighting off Spain these days...
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Looks like they might not be holding on much longer the way the things are unfolding in 1B. They are rapidly running out of players with last name Jogi :sarcasm:
 
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ozo said:
This was probably the most absurd miss I have ever seen. Imo worse than the famous Hemsky empty net fiasco.
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To be fair it would have made the 2-6, right? Probably not game-changing which is the whole infamy of the Stefan-Hemsky situation.
ozo said:
Im super high on the bunch of kids now playing Swiss system. Purely from statwatching they seem like serious prospects with pro career ahead of them. Also Lubys is not the worst of backups to fall back upon when the time comes if he continues playing.

Looks like they might not be holding on much longer the way the things are unfolding in 1B. They are rapidly running out of players with last name Jogi :sarcasm:
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Swiss kids do look promising but they are 4-5 years away from making an impact. And even then, they are just replacements for the guys who were very solid for his level anyway (Kumeliauskas, Bosas, the old guard).

Hopefully, they can become better than Oberliga goalscorers but still a lot of ifs and buts still there. I have sort of given up on Lubys at this point, I'm not even sure if Pavliukov isn't the better goalie, too bad he didn't quite make it as a pro. Or didn't insist on chasing that dream, should I say.

Well if Estonians come down for next year Potsinoks are just going to murder this division :laugh: Then again, I looked it up after saying this and Dumcius is actually outproducing both of them as they are teammates, so... Maybe it isn't so bad.

Talking about more current events though, today's game is making me feel a whole lot better. Tournament situation is a complete mess, all you have to do is win the next game and hope for the best.
 
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I think Croatia is taking this the offensive pressure is head and shoulders above the two teams they r played so far
 
I think expecting that from a team that played in D2B last year and has already lost the head-to-head matchup against the other D2B team is a very tall task.
 
SoundAndFury said:
I think expecting that from a team that played in D2B last year and has already lost the head-to-head matchup against the other D2B team is a very tall task.
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It was 3 months ago croatia was first Holland was runner up

What are you getting at?
 
crobro said:
It was 3 months ago croatia was first Holland was runner up

What are you getting at?
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Well by "I think Croatia is taking this" I assumed you were predicting Croatia to win the division which is something you have done before. I'm getting at the fact you still have 2 objectively stronger teams left to play and have dropped a pretty much must-win game against The Netherlands already. Being first 3 months ago was nice, dropping a game to them 3 days ago not so much.

We talked about this 3 months ago and I don't really see what has changed. Yes, you have won against GB on the back of their poor goaltending, game mismanagement by their coach (who is by all accounts a muppet), ridiculously overperforming PP (ties in with the poor goaltending) and them likely taking the game for granted (something GB junior teams have also been very prone of). You have also dropped the game to the Netherlands which you were fully expected to beat so it more or less evens things out.

2 very tough games still left to play and the team which realistically, in terms of talent level, cannot compete with Lithuania or even, likely, Spain. Like ozo said back then, "This is not Mighty Ducks movie where beating Iceland is a big deal". Well, beating GB is a much bigger deal but again, this is the same team that lost to the Netherlands 3 days ago. You can't expect every game to be the upset. You can hope, surely there is nothing stoping you from that, but you can't expect it.
 
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Why Croatia wouldn't be able to compete with Spain in terms of talent level?

Spain did only beat Romania, team weaker than Netherlands, they play in local league almost exclusively and I don't see anything in their game implying they are tier above Croatia.
 
HungryFrank said:
Why Croatia wouldn't be able to compete with Spain in terms of talent level?

Spain did only beat Romania, team weaker than Netherlands, they play in local league almost exclusively and I don't see anything in their game implying they are tier above Croatia.
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Spain has core players that finished 4th in the division and tied GB in points last year intact (effectively clear 1-2 seeds after the division realignment). The team that beat us, took Korea to OT and was Italy's toughest matchup. Croatia, on the other hand, didn't exactly dominate D2B 3 months ago. It's never an easy comparison but this particular group of Spanish boys has a much more proven track record at this level.

Also, if the Netherlands are any litmus test, Romania and Croatia actually achieved the exactly same result against them: both lost by 1 goal and shots were 47-28 in both games. Don't really see how one team deserves to be labeled "weak" while the other is now evidently a promotion contender in the aftermath. If anything, those are likely very similar strength teams. One of whom got crushed by Spain already.

Anyway, today will basically show who is who. At this point, it's just educated guessing made more difficult by yesterday's GB loss. If one was to believe Croatia won on merit, then sure, they are probably promotion favorites. If you were to believe Croatia got lucky due to many favorable circumstances (as I do), it probably didn't change much in terms of how you see teams playing here. And we have a 22-3 goal differential against Croatia in the D2A era so it's hard for me to see actual title contenders here. Sure they have Idzan now but they had Rendulic before, one guy only gets the team so far, especially when most other kids still play in Croatia (again, playing in the Spanish men's league easily edges that). Very likely this is the best Croatian team in recent memory (ever?) but it's hard to imagine they are all of a sudden 2 hockey tiers better than usual.

Basically, at this point, you either choose to believe Croatia's win yesterday was an outlier or pretty much all the other data but that win is.
 
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ahh here it is... the casual dominant GB performance we all expected after their yesterday's game :sarcasm:
 
Looks like it's Romania's turn to have goalie trouble as the GB boys soothe their sored egoes with a proper thumping.
Norton on the other hand's been excellent, which makes the decision to drop him for the Croatia game seem ever stranger.
 
Everyone knows giving your best in every game is overrated, the key is to bounce back strong after a defeat :sarcasm: Also this particular GB goalie hasn't allowed a goal for 100+ minutes already.

aquaregia said:
Looks like it's Romania's turn to have goalie trouble as the GB boys soothe their sored egoes with a proper thumping.
Norton on the other hand's been excellent, which makes the decision to drop him for the Croatia game seem ever stranger.
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It makes some sense to rotate your goalies for what was supposed to be an easy game but I don't understand why they waited until the 6th goal to pull the other guy who clearly struggled. Had he been pulled when it was 1-4 GB would have had a legitimate chance to come back.
 
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SoundAndFury said:
Spain has core players that finished 4th in the division and tied GB in points last year intact (effectively clear 1-2 seeds after the division realignment). The team that beat us, took Korea to OT and was Italy's toughest matchup. Croatia, on the other hand, didn't exactly dominate D2B 3 months ago. It's never an easy comparison but this particular group of Spanish boys has a much more proven track record at this level.
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First of all, I'm not saying Croatia is a promotion contender, just that they are more or less on same level as Spain, both are below Lithuania and realistically GB.

1) International results last year
I wouldn't draw too much conclusions from couple of games during COVID years.

2) Bad loss against Netherlands
I believe you forget about "Balkan mentality" when playing as a favorite, which makes teams choke.

3) league comparison
I fail to see how Spanish league is so much better than croatian and this is not a compliment to any of the leagues. I believe IHL, league where, let's say, mid-6 players play regularily, is a better league. We can look at Continental Cup, Barcelona failed miserably two years in a row, once actually being beaten by Mladost and this year with 0 points while Sisak won the group. I'm not even going into Idžans, Bodiroga, etc who play in basically top leagues for their age.

IMO game between Spain and Croatia can go either way. I don't think Croatia is a promotion contender, neither is Spain.

I appreciate you taking time to explain your reasoning.
 
HungryFrank said:
IMO game between Spain and Croatia can go either way. I don't think Croatia is a promotion contender, neither is Spain.
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Yeah, I'm not insisting Spain is the favorite there either, just that Croatia won't have a walkover game there.

Regarding the league comparison, it's not so much about the league level but the number of games and roles on the team these things seem to be getting (judging by their production). But yeah, upon checking, that league has 2 players scoring above 2 PPG so maybe that's a bit overrated.

Regarding the older Idzan and Bodiroga, they are playing at a decent level but not really in top leagues. In Idzan's case, he is not doing particularly well either. They are decent players for this level but not really top-tier ones.

P.S. I understand the difference between the positions you and crobro are taking, I just tried to 2 people at once.
 
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