NHL rinks are 200 feet long and 85 feet wide, but European surfaces are 197 feet by 98.5 feet. The similar length but larger width to the international game gives players much more room to show off skilled play, minus the tight checking so commonplace in NHL competition.
This year’s tournament, which runs through May 25, kicked off Friday in Herning, Denmark, and Stockholm, Sweden, with a slew of games, including a 5-0 win by Team USA over the host Danish side. Kraken center Matty Beniers scored twice while goalie Joey Daccord picked up the shutout by stopping 17 shots in front of a packed house of 10,500 people at the Jyske Bank Boske arena in Herning.
Canada’s team, captained by Pittsburgh Penguins star Crosby, plays its opener in Denmark on Saturday against Slovenia. Unlike the Winter Olympics or the recent 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in February, the world championships feature only NHL players whose teams have been eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention.
That makes it a slightly less high-caliber event, though its century-long tradition overseas – where fans for decades considered it their Stanley Cup due to Europeans having almost no representation on NHL teams – still give it plenty of intensity. Czechia defeated upstart Switzerland in last year’s gold medal game and then beat them again on Friday in one of the tournament’s round-robin openers.
Canada won a record 28th gold medal two years ago, one more than the Russian side banned from participating in the late due to that country’s invasion of Ukraine. Czechia is third with 13 golds while the U.S. has just one from actual world tournament play in 1933 – it automatically was declared world champ a second time in 1960 by winning Olympic gold – and enters this year’s event with Kraken players Beniers, Daccord, Mikey Eyssimont and trainer Camelio hoping to end the 92-year drought.
Montour only played three games at the 2019 worlds due to injury. But Botterill remembers him showing off the skills that have made him a prominent Kraken threat.
“You saw at the international level what a great skater he was,” Botterill said. “And just, in that open ice, the impact that he could have on the game. And that’s where, no matter how much ice time Ryker has, I think he’s just really going to look good over there because of his skating ability.”
The left-handed shot Evans and right-handed Montour are both under Kraken control for years to come, meaning they’ll likely see plenty more side-by-side ice time well after this tournament ends.