The Athletic Hockey Show - US beats Canada on New Year’s Eve, but will they win World Juniors gold?

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

Max, Corey, and Scott get together for the final time in 2024, just moments after a 4-1 US win over Canada at the World Juniors, to discuss Canada’s scoring woes, why the US is the tournament favorite, Czechia’s impressive play so far, and more. Hosts: Max Bultman and Corey PronmanWith: Scott WheelerExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series. Hey, everybody, Max Bolbin here alongside the Athletic Scott Wheeler and Corey Pronman for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series. Happy New Year to all of our listeners, first and foremost, and we're recording this just moments after the United States 4-1 win over Canada to round out, pool play, Scott. Canada obviously comes up on the wrong end of this, 4-1. They finishes the three-seat in the group. What are your thoughts on coming out of this? This was a game everyone had circled, but it feels like it got kind of preempted by the upset loss to lap via earlier in the tournament. And now Team Canada is sitting here looking at a pretty tough path in this world juniors.

Yeah, a path of their own making. I think there's a lot wrong or at least flawed with this team Canada. The depth scoring, the scoring in general, even their top players, their best most talented players, Gavin McKenna, Callum Richie, Berkeley, Katten, Katten had six shots on goal tonight. nothing to show for it. They can't score. They can't finish. And I actually thought, frankly, that outside of the discipline tonight, which was their biggest issue tonight and has now been the issue in two of their last three games, outside

of the 11 minor penalties they took, and some of them were frankly unacceptable. Easton Cowan and Luca Pinelli looked like they were looking to take penalties all night. Pinelli took two. Cowan took a brutal one in the third period. Sam Dickinson had a pair of penalties. Carson Raycoff had a pair of penalties. Now, the Dickinson and Ray Kopp ones weren't of the same variety of the Penelian-Kowen ones. Peneli and Cowan were just, they weren't up to the moment tonight.

The discipline in terms of just the frustration level, yapping at guys, cross-checking guys behind the play, looking for things after whistles. That felt inevitable. The Cowan won late in a third period that USA scored on, which basically sealed the hockey game in particular. It was just an unacceptable boarding penalty at the Canadian bench that you can't take. other more minor penalties than the next team, by the way. 29 minors through the man, Robin. And yet through all of that, and I've been carving this team really over their last two games,

they were obviously horrible against Latvia, but I thought they were poorer against Germany and their 3-0 win as well. That was a 1-0 game until almost four minutes left in the game. I actually thought this was maybe Canada's best game of the tournament at 5 on 5. They've talked a lot about getting looks and being snake-bitten, and I wasn't buying it early in the tournament. I actually thought they had plenty of looks tonight. Gavin McKenna hit a crossbar.

They were getting to the inside more. They had a number of one-touch sort of chances right in the heart of the slot that Trey Augustine had to make big saves on, a huge one on Tanner Mollendike in the second period. I thought this was Trey Augustine's best game of the tournament by a long shot. He looked like himself again and was a huge factor in the outcome. If this game was played at five-on-five, I think Canada would have ultimately pushed and pushed and pushed

and potentially have won this game, like Canada couldn't stay out of the box. And yet again, even when they are playing well at five on five, they just don't seem to have that one shot score, that guy who's going to put the puck in the net. The Americans have that. And Corey will get to it. It hasn't been the people that they were maybe expecting. But who was it when Easton Cowan takes a penalty? Who is it that scores?

It's Cole Eisenman, right? And they even, even Cole Isman is the 13th forward on that team tonight, has it in him to make a play and to shoot the puck into the net. And Canada just seems to be missing that. And that combined with the discipline is a dangerous recipe to win important games in this tournament. Yeah, to your point, Scott, not a single goal in this game was scored five on five. It was the empty netter and a bunch of power play goals. So certainly the game state did not favor a team that was not going to be able to capitalize on the power play as well.

That's now one five on five goal for hockey Canada against Latvia, Germany, and the United States over their last three games. And the goal was scored shooting to puck off the end boards. off the back of a goalie skate. So Canada, in their last three games, has yet to shoot the puck past a goalie and into the net at five on five. And two of those teams are obviously typical bottom feeders in this tournament. So pretty unacceptable and rare territory for hockey Canada right now. I don't want to kind of jump to this conclusion until we get to the end of the medal round.

I almost kind of wonder if we overrated this Canadian team by constantly calling them a gold medal favorite and if there should have been some warning signs that this was going to happen, that they were going to, we talked coming to the tournament about, hey, we don't know whether this roster has enough skill. They left a lot of skill at home, you know, but we always have questions on the selections. There's always a lot of great options, really good players get cut and they still score 25 goals in the round robin. But I do just wonder, just looking at this Canadian team.

Is it actually a good team? Or is this a team that just really doesn't have enough skills? skill and on the skill they do have, like Gavin McKen, like Porter-Marcones, like Berkeley Cadd, and are they just too young to make an impact at this tournament and obviously are going to be major players in next year's tournament? Scott referenced Trey Augustine's Big Night Tonight, and then he was a guy who had struggled in their first, in his first couple of appearances for Team USA. And that's been one of the interesting stories of this tournament for the Americans, is they

have had to do it with some different guys stepping up as their stars than the ones that we expected coming in. Absolutely. It's been a very, I think, strange round robin for the Americans and that it still went very well for them. I think they are a favorite going into the medal round. I think they have a very strong chance to repeat as, you know, with their back-to-back gold medals.

But you look at where their offense has come from in this tournament. And it hasn't been what we expected. I think any reasonable observer of amateur hockey. would have expected James Hagan's Ryan Leonard and Gay Perrault to light this tournament up. They knew that they were just because they had played together, particularly Leonard and Perrault had so much familiarity and history of scoring at the junior and college level. And then you add in James Higgins,

who has been very good here. And you would expect that they would be dominating this tournament. And they'd been good, snake bitten, some posts, some near misses that could have gone in. But I wouldn't say they've been dominating. this tournament. And, you know, I don't know, you look at the numbers, like Ryan Linder's got two goals and four points.

You know, pro's numbers are not as, you know, also two goals and four points. Z. Boyam, I think he's only got two points on the tournament. It's very unexpected in that top power, you know, with those four on it, to me has been very vanilla, not much creativity at all, not at all, you know, especially Zeev Boyam to me, has not been at all the player that I know when I watch Denver games and see how skilled and deceptive he is. He's been, I think, rather ordinary for them at times in this tournament. Their power play in general has been ordinary that top unit. But it's been that second unit with Danny Nelson and Cole Hudson in particular.

Those two guys, in my opinion, have been the two best players on Team USA. And I don't think anybody in much of you love Cole Hudson and Danny Nelson would have told you that was going to be the case. through the round robin. And yes, they've gotten some big goals from Cole Eisenman at times. He had two points in this game against Canada, despite only play a handful of minutes. But it's really been the play of Nelson as a second line center. And really, any time Cole Hudson has been near the pot,

he's been making a dynamic play. Currently, this is a strange one too. The two leading scorers through the round robin are both defensemen. Cole Hudson and Axel Sandine Pelican, Sweden are the leading scorers currently in the tournament and are probably the favorites currently in the MVP race right now, which to say is a very strange circumstance is that I'm sure some four are going to have a big medal round and we'll pass them at some point here. That's kind of been the story of this tournament so far,

and is that I don't think there's been a player or two players who have been absolutely star-studded and taken over this tournament. I think there's a handful of teams that are legitimate contenders for the gold medal, USA, Sweden. I wouldn't even write off Canada yet, although they're making us want to. Finland's got a puncher's chance. But quite frankly, I think after Sweden and the USA, I think Chekia has got the third best chances right now to win a gold medal.

What do you think about that, Scott? I mean, that's the matchup we're going to get in this quarterfinal here, is Canada Czechia now. and obviously this candidate team struggled, you're probably a little reticent to, you know, be the first one, you know,

picking them here, but they are still team Canada. And we, you know, we're kind of accustomed just waiting for team Canada to find its game, even as good of a tournament as Czechia has had. I think that the Canada check you game is clearly the best quarter final matchup that

we've got. And I think it ultimately will come down to a discipline as it has with Canada all tournament here. But then the goaltending, they have two excellent goaltenders in Michael Harabell and Carter George, who've been really, really strong here. Obviously, I think Harabel, I was just watching it on the TV here, so I wasn't paying full attention. There was one goal today that I saw in Harabble in the Sweden game that I didn't

love. But both of those goalies have been excellent. I think that's a game that will be played and won at five on five. If Team Canada can stay out of the box, those teams are pretty evenly matched up. I don't think there's the skill gap per se between those two teams that we maybe thought there was coming in. I, Corey and I both, spoke pre-tournament about how we liked this this check team. They've got a strong blue line. They left off a couple of excellent. Checks scored 15 more goals in the round Robin than Canada.

And they're four lines deep. Like this check team, they don't have the star power up front. The strength of that team is their goaltending and their blue line. But they're four like legit lines deep of, of actual player, like strong junior hockey players. So I think that's,

I don't think it's a pick. I would still, like if I'm setting the betting line for Vegas, I'm, I'm setting the betting line in favor of, Team Canada for that game as crazy as that sounds, given the way that Canada has played for large chunks of this tournament. But it's pretty close to a pick-um, which is coming in. I believe Corey and I were both talking about how it would be stunning if a non-big three team were to upset one of the favorites in this tournament. There was just such a gap this year. And that's not

how this tournament has played out at all. Yeah, I think for me, it's a 50-50 when those two teams. And I might even lean check you if I was making a bet right now. just because I think the depth of that team, just better, older players, I think. They've shown they can really gel as a team, a very good goalie there in a rival.

And I mean, they don't have the high, high-end skill that Canada does. And that could be a potential difference maker. But I also think you want to look at Canada. Yeah, there's a couple of guys on this team are really skilled. But then there's a lot of guys in that team,

you're like, it's fine skill. You know, they're good skaters. They work hard. But it's not special skill by any means. It's really only a couple of guys on the team, especially with Matthew Schaefer no longer in the tournament, and Porter Martone, who I think had issues with the pace as a young

player in this tournament. On the sidelines, there isn't really a ton of high-end skill on Canada. I think they're really going to have to outwork and out-paced, check you to win that game. What about big picture, I mean, the Americans, obviously, by winning this game, again, I think at the start of the tournament, we said, whoever wins on New Year's Eve, that's your favorite for this tournament. The Americans win it tonight, like, you know, we talk about it, they They had some key guys look better. But Corey, are they now the favorite? Or is Sweden who was undefeated through group play?

Are they the favorite now? I would say they are the favorite. I think there is some real high-end talent on the U.S. And I think the question coming into the U.S. is can they get secondary scoring? And the answer is yes. And I think even though their top players haven't been amazing, I think in part they've been snaked in, they've hit a couple of pose, they've had some plays.

And if it's just an inch the other way, the puck goes in. So I like the way this team is looking right now. I don't think they are an undefeatable team by any means. They lost to Finland. So they definitely can lose to Sweden. They definitely can lose the Czech yet. They can lose to Finland again. They could lose to Canada.

I mean, despite the 401 result, this was a very tight game. And they could have lost this game if Canada didn't take 25 minor penalties during the course of the game. You know, so I think, but I think if you had to ask me to rank the teams, I would put USA a 1 right now. What about you, Scott?

I'm going USA1 as well. I think there are, the concern I've had with Team USA All Tournament is when Zee, Boy, and Cole Hudson aren't on the ice. And I think Cole Hudson has been maybe the best player in this tournament so far. When those two aren't on the ice, who can you count on? They clearly trust Drew Ford to skew to penalty kill and to play opposite of Zee. They've been playing together since they were 16 years old on the same pairing, even under Dan Mews for those two years of the program predominantly. But it's been tough at moments for Colin Ralph and for the rest of that blue line, Araminedetti and Paul Fisher.

They played those guys very little tonight. There were three guys up over 20 minutes and three guys who were in that sort of eight to 12, 13, 14 range for that blue line. But other than that, I think they've got the best team in the tournament. And most importantly, I think they've got the most talented team in this tournament. And often it comes down to four or five players. The fact that USA has been able to expand that group, as Corey mentioned earlier, from beyond Zeeve Boyam and Gabe Pro and James Hagen's and Ryan Leder,

and even Oliver Moore has been really, really good at five-on-five in this tournament, even if the points have been there. But Danny Nelson, Cole Hudson, they've been extremely impactful. And I think that's a separator. If Trey Augustine plays like he did tonight, the Americans are the toughest out, in my opinion. You might remember, Danny Nelson was huge for this age group at the UAE level. He had a monster. World Championship and he's been coming up big again.

And I think the Islanders might have a real player there in the second row. All right. That's going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of the athletic hockey show Prospect Series. We will be back with you next, this weekend or early next week, once this whole thing sorts itself out, should be a hell of a tournament up there in Ottawa. Happy New Year to all of you.