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3 Takeaways From Fifth Day of Games at World Junior Summer Showcase
Ivar Stenberg, Team Sweden (Photo by Leila Devlin/Getty Images)

Just like the rest of the week, there were two games on Friday, August 1, at the World Junior Summer Showcase. The first game was between Sweden and Canada, which Sweden won in dominating fashion, 8-4. The second game was between Finland and the United States. Finland came out on top 6-3. 

A lot of goals were scored, and quite a few penalties were taken once again. A lot of the bigger names didn’t play; they either went back home or just had the day to rest, which gave others the chance to step up and show what they could do. In this article, we’ll look at a few takeaways from the day, starting with how Sweden found the rebounds. 

Sweden Pounces on Rebounds

Obviously, Sweden knows how to score goals when they put up eight against Canada and plenty more throughout the week leading up to this game. While they’ve scored a lot of goals with pretty shots, something that stood out was their ability to “clean up the trash” in front of the net. For those who’ve watched The Mighty Ducks, you’ll know what I’m talking about with that statement. For those who haven’t seen the movie, “clean up the trash” is exactly like it sounds, but the trash is the hockey puck, and the garbage bin is the net.

Sweden did a great job of watching for rebounds and pouncing on them when they were there, and didn’t give the goaltender time to adjust with a player right on top of him. The majority of their goals were the result of strong shots, at least one from their game against Canada, and possibly more throughout the week, which were scored by capitalizing on the rebounds and being in the slot. 

Although Sweden had a great win, and were quite excited about it after the game when seeing the player’s head to their locker room, one player’s comments stood out in the press conference after. Ivar Stenberg wasn’t quite as excited as his teammates about the win and was pretty critical of his play.

“I think today I was not that good, I think I have to play better but yeah if the coach wants me to play good and be a big factor on this team I definitely could be that,” Stenberg said when asked about his play, and he continued, “Of course it’s fast and good hockey and I think my game it works really well and maybe I should move my feet a little bit more but I think my game was okay but today I was not that good.”

While he may not be happy with his play, he’s had a great showcase and, like we’ll allude to later in this article, it is still “summer hockey”. They have a lot of time to fine-tune their games when the season starts up, even if they aren’t with these teammates at that time.

Canada’s Loss Isn’t Critical

Losing 8-4 isn’t a great way to end a game, but as many have pointed out this week, it’s July/August and it’s “summer hockey”. Summer hockey always has a different feel and look to it than during the winter and regular season. Most players are taking a break at this time, still working out but not playing every day, except for these players at the showcase. They have to get out of their summertime moods and think about playing hockey to leave a good impression for December. 

Canada clearly has some things to work on, like every team in this showcase does, but the other thing to look at is; they were without their top guys. They had great players in the lineup in Cayden Lindstrom, Michael Hage, Cole Reschny, among others, who were able to score goals, but not quite enough to get past Sweden. 

The biggest rivalry matchups have yet to happen but will take place on Saturday, Aug. 2, the final day of the showcase. Sweden and Finland will face off, as well as the United States and Canada, which will likely bring a lot of tension out of the lineups that we have yet to see. There have been a lot of penalties and fisticuffs, but these matchups will bring it out even more. 

Finland Has Depth

Watching Finland progress throughout the week, it’s clear they have a lot of talent and have a solid chance to bring home more than they did last year. With Aatos Koivu, Jasper Kuhta, Daniel Nieminen, Joona Saarelainen, and many others, they have a lot of scoring power, especially on the power play, but they also have strong defense. 

It didn’t matter what line was on the ice; they all had a chance to score. There’s a three-way tie for points among players, and it’s between Sweden’s Jack Berglund and Wilson Björck, with the third player being Finland’s Koivu. They all have six points in four games played. Koivu is the only one of the three to have all six points be goals; he leads the way among players in goals. 

Behind Koivu is his teammate Kuhta with four goals, but those are his only points, so several other players are in between him and Koivu with points. In between them are two other teammates, Nieminen, who has zero goals but five assists, and Matias Vanhanen with one goal and four assists for five points as well. Combining the four players, they’ve amassed 20 points in four games. It’ll be interesting to see what they do in their final game of the showcase. 

These teams have come a long way in just a week’s time with practices and games. They have a ways to go, but will have their game more refined when it’s back to the regular hockey season and they’ve been playing more often than in the middle of the summer. This last day will be the most entertaining with the big rivalries finally coming to a head, and it’ll be interesting to see who comes out on top.

This article first appeared on The Hockey Writers and was syndicated with permission.

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