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Podkolzin named Russia captain for this week's Karjala Cup tournament
November 2, 2020, 1:35 PM ET [546 Comments]
Carol Schram
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • RSS • Archive • CONTACT
We'll get a chance to take a look at three of the Vancouver Canucks' European prospects later this week. The Karjala Cup is scheduled for Nov. 5-8 at Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, with teams from Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic and Russia taking part.

The big news for Canucks fans is that Vasily Podkolzin was officially named captain of the Russian squad on Monday. He's also expected to be Russia's captain for the World Junior Championship, which gets underway on Christmas Day in Edmonton.



As Podkolzin mentions, this is not strictly a U20 tournament.

Here's a look at the Czech roster, which includes familiar veteran names like Dmitrij Jaskin and Andrej Sustr, but also has plenty of kids.



Here's the roster for Sweden — also dotted with familiar names including Lias Andersson and our old pal Jonathan Dahlen!



As for Finland, you can see their roster here. I recognize Jere Sallinen, age 30, from the motley group of underdogs that won the gold medal at the World Championship in Slovakia in 2019. Some other names here are familiar from past World Junior tournaments.

So the Russian kids are going to be in tough, playing against what will largely be senior mens' teams. Probably best to get ahead of this and acknowledge, now, that the sky will not be falling if Podkolzin doesn't dominate?

Here's the full Russian roster:



In addition to Podkolzin, Canucks prospect Dmitry Zlodeyev will also suit up for Russia. Vancouver's sixth-round pick from last month's 2020 draft, Zlodeyev is just 18, but has been lightning up Russia's junior league, the MHL, this season. He's generating some legitimate excitement about his upside.



Now, you might be wondering how Viktor Persson figures in all this. The Canucks' seventh-rounder from the October draft was listed as an injury replacement for Sweden over the weekend.



Important distinction here — Persson has been added to Sweden's U20 roster, which will be playing its own friendly games, separately, this week.



Here's a Persson highlight from the weekend from his club team, Brynas Juniors.



He's set to join the Kamloops Blazers when the WHL season begins.

Arvid Costmar, one of the Canucks' seventh-round picks from the 2019 draft, was also originally set to play on Sweden's U20 team, but was removed from the roster due to a Covid outbreak with his club team in the SHL, Linkoping.



Costmar, a centre, is pointless in six games with Linkoping so far this season. It's not clear whether or not he has tested positive for Covid, but we do know that he missed the first couple of weeks of the SHL season due to a hand injury.

Here's Finland's U20 roster for those friendlies:



The Canucks' 2020 third-rounder, Joni Jurmo, is not on this roster. Not sure if that means he's out of contention for World Juniors, but he is just 18. He'll get another crack next year.

I'll wrap today with the latest social media hijinks from our boy Petey.

Hockey players love Halloween, and my social feed this weekend was loaded with cute family costumes while everybody's at home with their kids.

But as usual, Petey wins at the social game. Can you imagine seeing these two in downtown Vancouver on Saturday, then finding out later who it actually was?

I wonder if a well-known personality like Petey gets a special kick out of being able to move around in total anonymity?

Click through to see the full story of Petey's quest.

View this post on Instagram

we got the goods 🍪🍪

A post shared by Elias Pettersson (@_eliaspettersson) on

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