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Quarterfinal Round Gets Underway at WJC

The 2018 World Junior Championship has moved to the single-elimination rounds. From here on out, it is win or go home for teams still in contention.

The two teams not in contention, Belarus and Denmark started their best-of-three series at Harborcenter to determine who stays in the tournament for next year and who gets relegated. The Danes took a big step by winning the game 5-4. For the Danes, who only scored two goals throughout the entire prelim round, these five goals were their biggest outburst of the tournament. Now, with their backs to the wall, Belarus will try to rebound in game two on Thursday.

In the quarterfinal round, the Czech Republic was the first team to advance, defeating Finland in a shootout 4-3 at Key Bank Center. That game, of course, featured no Devils prospects. Czech Republic had struggled in recent years to get out of the quarterfinals, they had not advanced out of that round since 2005 (a year when they won bronze), but this year they did just that. The Czechs will face the winner of the next game played, Canada and Switzerland.

That game was played four hours after the Czech-Finland game and was all Canada to the tune of 8-2. Canada will now face the Czechs in the semifinals. Maxime Comtois led Canadian scorers with three points (a goal and two assists) while goaltender Carter Hart made 13 saves on 15 shots. Canada peppered the two Swiss goalies, Philip Wuthrich and Matteo Ritz (who came on in relief in the second period) with 60 shots. The two Swiss goalies combined for 52 saves.

Michael McLeod had three shots and was a plus-1 in 15:26 of ice time.

With that side of the bracket set, the other side of the quarterfinals got underway at 6 PM with Sweden versus Slovakia. The winner of this would take on the winner of the USA-Russia game that was played later on at 8 PM.

The Swedes would just edge the Slovaks 3-2 as they punched their ticket to the semifinals. They got two goals from Isac Lundestrom and one from Devils prospect Fabian Zetterlund in the win. Zetterlund ended the game with the goal, two penalty minutes (a tripping call early in the game), six shots on goal, an even rating all in 15:03 of ice time. Jesper Boqvist had a shot on net and an even rating in just 8:14 of ice time. For the Slovaks, Marian Studenic had two shots on goal and an even rating in 18:12 of ice time.

Sweden’s next opponent was set up in the late game between the US and Russia. They will be facing the United States as the US skated to a 4-2 win over their rivals. Joey Anderson notched an empty net goal (off assists from Ryan Poehling and Ryan Lindgren) to cap off a US victory.

On the Devils front, Mikhail Maltsev had three shots on goal and an even plus/minus rating in 17:05 of ice time while Yegor Zaitsev had one shot, an even rating in 20:55 of time on ice. Joey Anderson finished with the goal, six shots on goal (second only to Adam Fox’s eight on the team) and an even plus/minus in 25:10 of ice time (second on the team only to Brady Tkachuk’s 25:24).

So the semifinals are set as on Thursday Sweden will take on the USA and Canada will take on the Czech Republic. Also, game two of the relegation series between Denmark and Belarus will take place.

One other piece of business on the international front to get to: congratulations to former Devil Brian Gionta, who was named the captain of the 2018 US Olympic team that will play in South Korea this February. As you know, the NHL is not sending players so the Olympic teams from each nation will be kind of a hodge-podge of college players, junior players, AHL players, KHL players and other professionals not currently signed to an NHL contract. Gionta had has not retired and will be representing his country next month at the Winter Games. Good luck to him!

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Group Play Wraps Up at WJC

Group play at the 2018 World Junior Championship has come to a close with some of the quarterfinal matchups becoming clearer. One thing that is known is that Canada will play Switzerland in the quarterfinals, which take place on Tuesday, due to Canada’s finish in first place in Group A. Switzerland finished fourth in Group B. The quarerfinals are a crossover round between the groups so the first place finisher in Group A plays the fourth place finisher in Group B and so on. The teams that finished fifth get moved to a best-of-three relegation round to see who will move to the lower level and who will still qualify for next year’s World Junior Championship.

In the earliest game with Devils prospects participating, the Americans took on Finland, winning 5-4. The USA jumped out to an early 3-0 lead with Joey Anderson potting a power play goal at the 6:56 mark of the second period. Brady Tkachuk and Adam Fox had the assists on his goal. The Finns would cut the lead to 3-2, coming back throughout the second until Anderson struck again at 19:26 of the second with another power play goal. Fox and Casy Mittelstadt notched the assists on that goal.

The Finns scored a shorthanded goal 8:25 into the third frame and tied it up just 1:05 later. But the US got a timely goal from Fox with just under two minutes left in the game for the American win. Anderson’s stat line said that he had the two goals for two points, five shots on goal (which tied Fox and, Mittelstadt and Kieffer Bellows for the US game lead) and a plus-1 rating in 21:37 of ice time. That time on ice was second to only Mittelstadt, who logged 21:46.

The defending champs will likely play Russia, Sweden or the Czech Republic in the next round, depending on the outcome of the Russia-Sweden game later in the evening. The USA finishes the group round with 2 wins, and overtime win, no overtime losses and one loss for eight points good for second place in Group A. They had a goal differential of plus-10. Finland finished third in Group A with six points and will play the Russians, the Swedes or the Czechs, again contingent on the later game.

Slovakia and Marian Studenic met Denmark in the last of the group round. Denmark has had a rough go of it in this tournament and, in fact, finished last in Group A. The Danes actually took the lead early in this one, with Jaachim Blichfeld scoring on the power play just 4:46 into the game. But that was it for their scoring as the Slovaks took over and won the game 5-1. Studenic took a slashing penalty in the second period, but Slovakia killed that off. His stat line gave him the two penalty minutes, three shots on goal and a plus-1 rating in 11:49.

Slovakia finishes fourth in Group A with two wins and two losses (all in regulation) for six points. They also had a minus-4 goal differential. Their next opponent again hinges on the winner of Russia-Sweden. The Russians, Czechs and Swedes could all potentially end with nine points and tie breakers would be needed. Denmark, who finished last in Group A will take on Belarus, who finished last in Group B in a best-of-three series to see who will be relegated for next year.

With four Devils prospects and being the game that would set the matchups for the quarterfinals, Russia-Sweden was a must watch. And it was a good one. Tied 2-2 after one and then 3-3 after three, it would take a shootout to determine things after a great three-on-three OT period. Sweden’s streak of 43 straight wins in the preliminary round of the WJC, going back 11 years, was also on the line.

And Sweden would make it 44. Oskar Steen and Linus Lindstrom scored in the shootout to give them the win with Steen’s being the game winner. Devils prospect and Russian captain Yegor Zaitsev was named the player of the game for Russia. On Sweden’s run in the prelims, they have been terrific, but always seem to falter in the medal rounds. We will see what they do this year in the playoff rounds.

Zaitsev ended the night with a minus-1 rating in 19:30 of ice time. Mikhail Maltsev had an assist for a point, two penalty minutes, four shots on goal in 17:25. For Sweden, Jesper Boqvist did not play and Fabian Zetterlund had a shot on goal, was a minus-1 and had 13:32 of ice time.

So now the next round is set with Canada taking on Switzerland, the United States will face Russia, the Czech Republic takes on Finland and Sweden and Slovakia will square off. All of those games are on Tuesday. All will take place at Key Bank Arena except for Sweden-Slovakia, which will take place at Harborcenter.

From there, the winner of Canada-Switzerland will face the winner of Czech Republc-Finland and the Swedes or Slovaks will face either the Americans or Russians in the semifinals, taking place January 4.