Big stage, small ice.
The return of the World Cup of Hockey after a 12-year hiatus brings another best-on-best international hockey tournament for those of us who start getting antsy and irritable between Winter Olympics.
We surveyed these elite eight clubs’ rosters, their recent history on the global platform, their pre-tournament peek-a-boos, and their round-robin opponents to determine their power ranking heading into the showdown in Toronto.
1. Team Canada
Let’s start here: Team Canada has never not reached the final of the Canada Cup/World Cup, and it will be a shock if the host nation is not one of the final two teams standing in line for gold in the tournament’s eighth edition.
Head coach Mike Babcock will patrol a familiar ACC bench and whisper instructions to a familiar core. Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Drew Doughty, Shea Weber, Patrice Bergeron and Ryan Getzlaf have all been integral to Canada’s gold medals in 2010 and 2014.
The top line of Crosby, Bergeron and scorer/pest Brad Marchand looked particularly dangerous in pre-tournament action.
And if you’re worried about goaltender Carey Price’s health, don’t be.”I think you’d sleep like a baby if you had him,” said Babcock, with a Cheshire grin.
With Group A (Group Eh?) looking like the softer bracket on paper, the semis are a gimme and anything less than gold is national tragedy.
2. Team Sweden
The Tre Konor is a much deeper hockey nation since its fifth-place showing at the 2004 World Cup. Silver medalists in Sochi, the Swedes are the toast of Group B and boast the most dangerous defence in the tournament.
Erik Karlsson, Victor Hedman and Oliver Ekman-Larsson are each capable of breaking open a game with quick passes and fleet feet. Henrik Lundqvist has been the country’s No. 1 netminder for 12 gorgeous years and will embrace the pressure in Toronto, while the savvy Sedin twins will welcome support from speedy Carl Hagelin and skillsy Filip Forsberg up front.
Good news, Canucks fans: The Sedins have sparked early chemistry with countryman Loui Eriksson.
3. Team USA
The Americans won this thing 20 years ago and, judging by Patrick Kane’s Hart Trophy hands, should join the Canadians in surviving Group A with relative ease.
Handcrafted to be rugged and hard-checking on the small ice by GM Dean Lombardi, architect of the L.A. Kings’ sorta dynasty, in concert with the no-nonsense John Tortorella, Team USA’s roster favours heart-and-soul guys like Brandon Dubinsky and David Backes over playmakers like Phil Kessel and Kyle Okposo.
If they defeat Canada 2-1 or 3-2 next week, management will look brilliant. (The sides split their home-and-home pre-tournament series.) If the U.S. can’t score enough, or fall apart like they did in Sochi, they’ll get skewered by the critics.
4. Team Finland
A silver medallist the last time this event was held 12 years ago, Finland is widely viewed as a hockey nation on the rise and a trendy dark horse pick here. The Finns won the 2016 world juniors and grabbed bronze in Sochi and silver at two of the last three world championships.
The tandem of Pekka Rinne (the starter) and Tuukka Rask spells depth in the crease but its defence—Rasmus Ristoalinen, Sami Vatanen, Olli Maata—totes more developing talent than experience. Forwards Aleksander Barkov, Patrik Laine and Teuvo Teravainen will be a treat to watch, but they better score in bunches.
5. Team North America
“You look at the younger team, the under-24 team, those are probably some of the fastest players in the NHL—all on one team,” says Sidney Crosby. “They’re going to be playing with something to prove.”
Captain Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Jonathan Drouin, Johnny Gaudreau and Auston Matthews lead an intriguing forward core that has already proven to be the most fun to watch. And with 2015 Calder winner Aaron Ekblad commanding the blue line and Stanley Cup winner Matt Murray in net, the Young Guns have nothing to lose.
They skewered Team Europe by a combined score of 11-4 in their first two tune-up contests, snatching the other seven teams’ attention.
“We’re the young guys, but we’re not going to play like the underdogs,” Ekblad says. “Guys will feel more comfortable in this situation than they would on a team with 30- or 40-year-old veterans on an NHL team.”
6. Team Russia
Russia has not won a best-on-best senior title since the 1981 Canada Cup, well before the Iron Curtain fell. An experienced core of superstar forwards (Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Datsyuk) will join forces with now-generation studs (Artemi Panarin, Nikita Kucherov, Vladimir Tarasenko), but the club lacks a stud defenceman.
Can Andrei Markov or Dmitry Kulikov cut it? We have our doubts. So the pressure will be on a goaltender—Sergei Bobrovsky will start—to get hot and stay there for two week.
7. Team Czech Republic
A mix of familiar faces and new blood, Team Czech needs to prove that its best days aren’t behind it. The country has finished no better than fourth at a best-on-best tourney since 2012 and turned in a dismal sixth-place finish in Sochi. Radko Gudas might be its best defenceman, and he’s out with a wrist fracture. With Jaromir Jagr declining an invite and David Krejci sidelined with injury, the Czechs’ premier scorer is Tomas Plekanec.
“We’re probably going to be underdogs,” Milan Michalek admits. “But you never know. If the goalie plays good, I think we have a chance in a short tournament.”
That goalie could be Petr Mrazek or Michal Neuvirth—both capable of standing on their head, both capable of finding themselves in over their head.
8. Team Europe
Poor Team Europe. The hodgepodge of skaters from Slovakia, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, France, Norway and Slovenia was assembled in effort to include as many NHL stars as possible. Team chemistry and dedicated fan support will be tough to conjure last minute. Getting shellacked by the under-24s in pre-tournament action can not have helped morale, but a 6-2 win over Sweden is a point of optimism.
With decent but fading defenders like Dennis Seidenberg and Christian Ehrhoff —both free agents looking for NHL work—on the roster, the goaltenders will see plenty of rubber. Anze Kopitar, Marian Hossa and Thomas Vanek need to play the games of their lives if we’re to witness an upset.
