Reviewing Day One Of The Arizona Coyotes At The World Juniors

The World Juniors have officially begun, hockey universe

Hockey fans usually fall in one of two categories when it comes to the World Juniors — they either can’t get enough of it, or they could care less.

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This winter, though, at least two teams are being rather closely watched in the McEichel sweepstakes. Team USA miraculously has eight thousand rabid Twitter fans proclaiming their love, and Team Canada has everyone worked up into an even bigger frenzy than normal.

These two sneaky forwards are part of the small handful of players at the World Juniors who are still draft-eligible, though — a much larger percentage of the guys taking the ice are representing not just their countries, but their respective NHL franchises.

The Arizona Coyotes offer only two prospects in these particular World Juniors — forwards Max Domi, taken in the first round of the 2013 Entry Draft, and Anton Karlsson, taken in the third round this past summer. They represent Teams Canada and Sweden, respectively; with both teams favored to reach the final games of the competition, we’ll have plenty of time to keep an eye on these prospects.

In addition to these two, though, the state of Arizona itself boasts a player — Auston Matthews is the new face of desert hockey, so keep your eye on Team USA to see what he does, as well.

Max Domi and Team Canada: took home 8-0 victory over Team Slovakia

The final game of Friday’s four-game series, Team Canada’s massacre of Slovakia was almost painful to watch — but as a Coyotes fan, good things were seen from start to finish.

credit to Pete Blackburn

Not an overly physical or rough matchup, there was little danger of Coyotes prospect Max Domi being goaded into any retaliatory penalties — but with a goal and an assist on the night, he certainly made his presence known regardless.

Domi and the rest of Team Canada walked away from that first game with a collective shooting percentage just over 23% — unsustainable in the long run, but pretty nonetheless. Some other fun numbers to play with:

• Domi debuted on the top line with Sam Reinhart and Anthony Duclair, while phenom Connor McDavid and Ottawa Senators rookie Curtis Lazar became acquainted with one another on the second line. Domi’s line combined for a whopping six points, with Reinhart winning 73% of his face-offs
• Team Canada’s third line broke out with a combined eight points; all three players on that line (Nic Petan, Nick Paul, and Robby Fabbri) scored at least one goal in the game.
• Eleven separate members of Team Canada recorded at least one point in the game, with eight players recording multiple points
• Only five members of Team Canada failed to record a SOG; of those, four were defensemen (and were all on the ice when at least one goal was scored by Canada)

The biggest takeaway Coyotes fans should have from this game was Max Domi’s ability to read plays quickly on the ice. He’s an extremely effective playmaker, but his insane snipe in the second period showed that he knows when to shoot the puck, too. Arizona has struggled with this across all four lines this season; players like Mikkel Boedker and Martin Erat have trouble releasing the puck on time, while Sam Gagner passes too often and the whole team is bad about taking shots from bad on-ice positioning.

As the World Juniors progress, it will be interesting to see if Domi and his line can continue to lead the team; so far, both Domi and Duclair have recorded points in practically every appearance on the ice together.

Anton Karlsson and Team Sweden: took home 5-2 win over Team Czech Republic

No shocker here; Team Sweden looks to be a favorite once again.

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The Swedes were able to turn away every Czech shooter but Jakub Vrana, who scored both goals for his country in this first seasonal loss. He and Team Czech’s netminder Vitek Vanecek were both drafted by the Washington Capitals this summer; Barry Trotz should be pleased by Vrana’s performance in that game, while fellow Caps draftee Madison Bowey did big things for Team Canada with Domi and friends.

Overall, it was a nice win for Sweden, but they can’t expect every game to be this easy — Team Denmark pushed the Russians into overtime, showing surprising strength, and the Canadians seem practically unstoppable.

As for Arizona’s contribution to this game, Anton Karlsson could have been better… but he also could have been much worse. A minor penalty for tripping further reinforces the warning that he still hasn’t figured out how to toe the line with his physical play, but three SOG and a +1 rating redeem him in our eyes.

Team Sweden is the youngest team on average at the WJC this winter, which could ultimately be their downfall — but Karlsson is a part of the surprisingly experienced starting lineup Sweden offers. He’s in his second run at the World Juniors; last year, he was the youngest player on a powerful silver medal team. This year, Sweden is host to three seventeen-year-olds, making Karlsson a veteran… but he’ll need to stand out more than he did last year to give Arizona any confidence in his development.

The Coyotes are sorely lacking in players who aren’t afraid to fire the puck, and that’s what Karlsson did; even if he didn’t score on his chances, he put himself out there. He’s skating on the top line for Sweden, serving as the heavy-hitting power forward he was once projected to be, so expect to see more of him as the World Juniors wear on.

Notable Day One Tidbits:

• Apparently, Jack Eichel is able to make the other team look silly even when he himself makes mistakes
• Connor McDavid still looks like a really good hockey player, but he walked away from Friday’s game with zero goals and zero assists — despite six SOG himself alone. It may be because his line has had the least time to become acquainted, but the trio of McDavid, Curtis Lazar, and Nick Ritchie were the only offensive line to finish the game with a neutral plus-minus.
• Denmark keeps getting better with every passing year; they shocked Russia early on by establishing a two-goal lead and forcing their favored opponents to come back from behind.
• We haven’t seen any brawls yet, which is somewhat disappointing after the on-ice bar fight between Canada and Czech Republic during this summer’s WJC development camp. That being said, Canucks prospect Jake Virtanen is developing a bit of a reputation as a murderer, and it’s oddly mesmerizing.

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