By Anthony Pucik
The World Cup of Hockey takes place this September. Courtesy of Wikimedia.
Last week, countries began releasing their preliminary rosters for the World Cup of Hockey, taking place north of the border in Toronto this upcoming September. While there is still plenty to be decided, here’s a look at how the teams are shaping up.
As it stands now, the favorite to win the World Cup looks like Team Sweden. Its defense is deep both offensively and defensively. The pairing of Victor Hedman and Anton Stralman from the Tampa Bay Lightning will cause headaches for opposing scorers, while Ottawa Senators blueliner Erik Karlson and Coyotes D-man Oliver Ekman-Larsson will provide an offensive element that not many other teams can match. Sweden’s forwards are even more impressive, bolstered with veterans like the Sedin twins from the Vancouver Canucks and Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg and coupled with young up and coming talent like Filip Forsberg of the Nashville Predators and Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog. Pair that with goaltending from one of the NHL’s best, Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers, and Sweden will undoubtedly be one of the top teams at the World Cup.
While Team Canada and Team USA were expected to put together strong teams as they do every time the Olympics come around, two team rosters I was interested to see were Team Europe and Team North America. Team Europe was composed of players from the rest of the European countries not included in the World Cup already: basically an All Star team that wasn’t Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic and Russia, while Team North America is made up of American and Canadian players that are under the age of 24. Team Europe’s roster was filled with talent, but Team North America is the team that intrigues me the most.
Team North America has the potential to be a dark horse in the World Cup. On defense, they have the Panthers’ Aaron Ekblad, the Blue Jackets’ Seth Jones and Ryan Murray, Toronto’s Morgan Rielly and Sean Couturier of Philadelphia, all up and coming stars in the NHL on their respective teams. While the team doesn’t have lockdown defensemen on the roster as of now, young, quick offensive weapons like Ekblad and Jones could lead to matchup problems for older teams like Russia. They also have yet to add American blueliner Shane Gostisbehere of the Philadelphia Flyers, who now holds the record for most consecutive games with a point by a rookie defenseman with 15.
Team North America has a lot of depth at forward. Connor McDavid (EDM), Dylan Larkin (DET), Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan (CGY) and Jack Eichel (BUF) are just a few of the names that pack the North American forward lines, with Anthony Duclair and Max Domi (ARI) not even on the roster yet. North America might run into a problem at goaltender, with John Gibson of the Ducks being its only one with long-term NHL experience; however, their preliminary roster looks extremely impressive and I wouldn’t count them out of a possible top four finish at the World Cup.
