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Penguins preview for World Juniors

August 12, 2022, 11:03 AM ET [18 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The World Junior Championships were postponed due to the omicron variant of the COVID 19 virus this past winter. The tournament began a few days ago on the ninth of August. The championship will be on August 20th. If you need your hockey fix this seems like a good summer option.

Getting your Penguins fix? Well, that is going to be a lot more difficult. Some things remain the same as they were last winter while some things have changed. What has remained the same is that the Penguins prospect pool still stinks. They don’t really have a lot of players who are in demand for these types of tournaments. Things that changed are that the few they did have for the originally scheduled tournament are no longer with the Penguins organization, their team has been banned from the tournament, or just flat out snubbed.

Calle Clang is playing in the tournament for Sweden. He is backing up Jesper Wallstedt. The former third round pick of the Penguins was traded away in the Rickard Rakell deal.

Joel Blomqvist was the potential starting goaltender for Team Finland. They left him completely off the roster. The running theory is he was prioritizing his professional career.





Kirill Tankov the Penguins 7th round pick in 2021 was slated to play for Russia in the tournament. Russia is no longer a welcomed participant due to world events.

So that is that. No Pittsburgh Penguins will be in the tournament. The only other team with zero participants is the expansion Seattle Kraken.

This isn’t a problem when you’re where the Penguins are in their story arc. They are in the final stages of a remarkable era in the team’s history. They are pushing all the chips in one way or another. They should be burning futures to keep the window open. The World Juniors are wildly overrated when it comes to NHL projections, anyways. Fun tournament, but comically overstated.

Tune in for the fun hockey. There’s nothing else going on.

Thanks for reading!
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