The 2021 World Junior Championship is getting heated as eight teams advance to the Quarterfinals.
The preliminary round has ended to the 2021 WJC and we are in for a treat of a playoff. The two teams that did not qualify for the playoffs this year are Switzerland and Austria.
The teams that remain present in the fight for the gold medal are Canada, USA, Finland, Russia, Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Let's take a look at how each of these teams ended up by the conclusion of the preliminary round.
Standings Going Into Quarterfinals
Team Canada advances to the next round with a perfect performance thus far. Teams USA, Finland, Russia, and Sweden have exchanged wins and losses that were unexpected. In this tournament, teams seem to have a mix of good and bad games, it's truly unpredictable at this point. All these teams have a competitive edge and the tools to compete in this. Going into the Quarterfinals, let's take a look at the match-ups and each team's performance in order to predict each team's destiny in the rest of the 2021 WJC.
Saturday, Jan. 2 -- WJC 2021 Quarterfinals Schedule
Russia vs. Germany @ 12 p.m. EST.
Finland vs. Sweden @ 3:30 p.m. EST.
Canada vs. Czech Republic @ 7 p.m. EST.
USA vs. Slovakia @ 10:30 p.m. EST.
Match-up Expectations
Russia and Germany are interesting. We all think that Russia has this game in the bag, but we can't expect that. Germany has had tough times in this tournament, but also times where they played well like, against Slovakia and Switzerland. Russia on the other hand, had a pretty solid preliminary round, not as good as the team wanted, but they did well. They had a great first game against USA. After they lost to Czech Republic it was evident that as a team, they were picking up their play and inner squad chemistry. Russia is my favorite for this match-up, I am excited to see how Germany will compete with this tough Russian team. I am also excited to see if Germany's Tim Stuetzle and John-Jason Peterka can continue to put up points on the board, maybe they can be a difference.
Finland and Sweden are two very good teams. Finland almost had a perfect run, until they ran into the big bad Canadians in their last preliminary game. Team Sweden started off hot until they ran into teams like Russia and USA. Sweden had a pretty tough game against USA and could be affected by that. I think Finland had a better run in the preliminary round, so I have them winning this game. Nonetheless, Sweden is a solid team and I could see this game ending either way.
Canada and Czech Republic are going to have an interesting match. Canada scored plenty of goals this preliminary round, Czech Republic needs to focus on forcing Canada to shoot from outside the circles. Since Canada is the one seed and Czech Republic sits at the seven seed, I expect Canada to come out on top. Considering Canada has smoked various teams in this tournament. Canada's Dylan Cozens has been lighting up the score sheet with 6 goals and 5 assists in the 4 preliminary games. I do not want to count out Czech Republic just yet though, they did have a good team win over Russia. This should be an intriguing game to watch.
USA and Slovakia will face off in the Quarterfinals. Team USA holds the two seed and Slovakia sits at the eighth seed. Slovakia started off with a one-goal win, then only allowed Canada to net three goals. I do think this Slovakian team is solid, the one thing that hurts them is that they could not finish an overtime game against Germany. Team USA on the other hand played very well in this preliminary round. Although they has a tough 5-3 loss in their first game against Russia, USA was perfect the next three games. We saw great offense develop from various guys, one thing we also saw was insane chemistry. The majority of goals are double assisted and Team USA is playing great team hockey. It is safe to say that USA will be moving out of this matchup. It is also safe to say that Zegras will continue to light up the score sheet, considering he has 6 goals and 7 assists in the 4 preliminary games.
Conclusion
In the 2021 WJC, we are seeing gritty, high-scoring, and skilled games. We are being spoiled and need to be thankful for these intriguing games being streamed on television. At one point we did not know when sports would be back and now, we are getting mass amounts of sports entertainment in unusual ways. I for one, am thankful for what professional sports leagues and organizations have done to entertain us while this terrible Pandemic is occurring. This highly skilled competition is unwinding and it is getting more and more interesting every game.