We’re a few days into round robin play at the 2024 IIHF men’s World Championships and a couple Calgary Flames players are representing their countries. Martin Pospisil is playing for Slovakia, while Andrew Mangiapane is suiting up for Canada.
Here’s how they’ve fared so far.
Martin Pospisil (Slovakia)
Pospisil’s representing his country for the first time on the senior level after previously suiting up at the Under-18 Worlds and World Juniors. So far, Pospisil has been as expected: physical and impressive, coming off his breakout season in the NHL.
Pospisil’s been playing as a centre, skating between wingers Milos Kelemen and Pavol Regenda. He had an assist and two penalties (roughing and boarding) in a 6-4 loss against Germany on Friday. He had two goals in a 6-2 win over Kazakhstan on Sunday. So far, he’s won 16 of 30 face-offs, just a smidge over half of his draws.
Pospisil plays a physical brand of hockey, and the challenge for him is probably going to be figuring out precisely what he can get away with at the international level, with the IIHF officiating typically being a bit more restrictive on physicality. He’s off to a good start. Slovakia still has games against Group B’s big guns, the United States and Sweden, remaining on their schedule.
Andrew Mangiapane (Canada)
Mangiapane’s representing Canada for the second time, following on the heels of his breakout performance at the 2021 World Championships. Based on that performance, where he was named tournament MVP and helped Canada win gold, expectations are fairly high for him.
So far, Mangiapane’s been quiet offensively. He’s been playing on a line with Dylan Cozens and Dylan Guenther, and he’s been named one of the club’s alternate captains.
He has zero points and three shots across to games, wins over Great Britain and Denmark. He had a bit of a down offensive year for the Flames, and the hope is likely that he can get his mojo back with the maple leaf on his chest. So far, it hasn’t materialized on the scoresheet, but there’s still a lot of round robin play remaining.
The top four teams in each group, A and B, following round robin action advance to the medal round. The lowest-placing teams in each group in round robin get relegated out of the championship division for next year’s tournament.
More must-reads: