|
Will the Canucks' Mikey DiPietro see action Canada at World Championship? |
|
|
|
|
|
It's hard to believe that the Vancouver Canucks' season-ending press conference with Jim Benning and Travis Green happened just four days ago.
With so much hockey being played, the Canucks have quickly faded from the conversation — mercifully, some might say.
Also — there's still a ton of hockey to watch, with World Championship action kicking off at 6 a.m. PT daily (2 a.m. on the weekends), lots of riveting first-round NHL playoff games, and even the Canadian edition of the PWHPA's Dream Gap tour this week, with a dose of women's hockey from Calgary at 2 p.m. PT each day.
For now, let's focus on Worlds, which have been crazy so far.
On Monday morning, I was up early to do Stats for Slovakia's 3-1 upset of the Russian team. It was a really impressive team game by the Slovaks, who didn't wilt under early physical pressure from bruisers like Nikita Zadorov, and capitalized on their chances when they came.
The Russians have one of the higher-end lineups in the tournament, too, with a smattering of NHLers and anchored by the core of the KHL's SKA St. Petersburg team along with coach Valeri Bragin.
Our boy Vasily Podkolzin played for Russia in the pre-tournament tune-up games. But in the end, he was not named to the final roster.
It's normal to see World Championship teams keep some roster spots open so that they can potentially add more NHLers as they get eliminated from the playoffs. The Russians did that on Monday with Dmitry Orlov and Ilya Samsonov from Washington, and Vladimir Tarasenko from St. Louis.
Evgeny Kusnetsov is still serving his four-year IIHF suspension after testing positive for cocaine during the 2019 Worlds. And Alex Ovechkin is taking a rare pass from the tournament as he deals with both an injury and his status as an impending UFA.
As of Tuesday, the Russian roster is made up of 22 players and two goalies. The maximum this year — expanded due to Covid — is 28 players, three more than usual. The three new arrivals will bring them to 27.
Late roster additions are required to serve a quarantine before they can get on the ice. As Gord Miller explained it on the TSN broadcast, the day of arrival counts as Day 1. They're allowed to join their teams on Day 6.
The preliminary round runs through next Tuesday, June 1. The quarterfinals go June 3, then the medal-round games take place on June 5-6. Based on that, the Russians could be ready to play before the end of the preliminary round.
This is my long-winded way of saying that it seems unlikely that Podkolzin is going to fly in as a last-minute roster addition, even though one open roster spot still remains.
But while he went over to Latvia as the third goalie, Mikey DiPietro did dress as backup on Monday, for Canada's 3-1 loss to Germany.
The Canadians had some bad luck in that game — several quick whistles when the puck was still loose in the crease of German netminder Mathias Niederberger. But they had their chances, outshooting Germany 40-28, and couldn't capitalize on a couple of long 5-on-3s which should have been golden scoring opportunities.
For the first time in tournament history, Canada is 0-3 to start. And the Canadians have scored just two goals in those three games — against Latvia, USA and Germany. Even if surprising Kazakhstan, which started with two shootout wins, comes back to earth, Canada is going to be in tough to even reach the playoff round. It looks like their group will come down to five teams contending for four spots: Germany, Latvia, USA, Finland and Canada.
The Germans currently lead the group with a 3-0-0 record. And after Edmonton's stunning first-round loss to the Jets on Monday night, it's highly possible that Leon Draisaitl and Dominik Kahun could head over and add even more firepower.
This is a big opportunity for Germany to further advance its mission to position itself among the world's top hockey nations. I wrote about that last summer for the New York Times, ahead of Tim Stutzle's draft.
As for DiPietro — first off, if you haven't seen it, check out his awesome set-up for this tournament.
And I wonder if he'll get any game action? Darcy Kuemper got the starts against Latvia and USA, but had a rough outing against the Americans and was ultimately replaced by Adin Hill, who then started the next day against Germany.
Kuemper has dealt with some injury issues this year. The fact that he didn't back up on Monday makes me wonder if he's fit enough to play again in the tournament.
Canada has completed its one back-to-back set, so even if Kuemper isn't fit, coach Gerard Gallant could ride Adin Hill the rest of the way. But if he looks to his former NHL club, the Florida Panthers, he'll see how young Spencer Knight shone in his first playoff start and kept the Panthers' playoff hopes alive with an outstanding performance on Monday night. Perhaps DiPietro could do the same for Canada?
As for some of the ex-Canucks at Worlds, as I write this on Tuesday morning, the tournament's leading scorer is none other than our old pal Nicklas Jensen of Denmark, with seven points in three games. With a 1-1-0-1 record, the Danes are messing with the rankings in Group A, currently holding down fourth spot while the Czechs and Swedes are outside the playoff positions.
Meanwhile, a U.S. team that's pretty low on star power has some great goaltending in Jake Oettinger and Cal Petersen and NHL rookie Jason Robertson anchoring the offense. Also, former Canuck Adam Clendening is tied for second in scoring by defensemen in the tournament with two goals and an assist in three games. For Canada, Troy Stecher is playing significant minutes, averaging 19:00 per game, but is pointless and a minus-three so far.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»