All four nations played in the World Junior Summer Showcase for the first time this week, with Sweden and Finland snagging convincing wins on Wednesday in Minnesota.<\/p>\n
The tournament will take a break on Thursday before returning for Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n
Sweden skated out to a 6-3 victory over the United States, improving to 3-0 after beating some form of the United States in each game so far. Finland, meanwhile, dismantled Canada with a 6-3 victory of their own, with Aatos Koivu leading the way with a pair of goals.<\/p>\n
While gold medals won\u2019t be awarded at the end of the tournament, the Swedes currently sit in first place, while Finland moves into second with their second victory of the week. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a look at the top performers from Wednesday evening:<\/p>\n
Sweden 6, USA 3<\/p>\n
Sweden<\/strong><\/p>\n #26 Jack Berglund, C (Philadelphia Flyers):<\/strong> I\u2019m definitely a Berglund Believer. I feel like he was underrated in his draft year, but he has really had a strong showing in Minnesota. He scored a goal and added an assist today, and he also showed what he\u2019s capable of as a power forward. He\u2019s hard to contain on the rush, and he\u2019s even more difficult to defend in tight spaces. Today was his best outing of the week so far.<\/p>\n #27 Wilson Bj\u00f6rck, RW (Vancouver Canucks): <\/strong>You can only take so much out of a week-long summer hockey tournament, but the Canucks must be thrilled with Bj\u00f6rck\u2019s play. He has been Sweden\u2019s best playmaker, and he looked great today with an assist. He thrives near the net, but he also makes great, high-quality passes under pressure better than most others on the Swedish attack. Bj\u00f6rck has not only been one of Sweden\u2019s best players this week, but he\u2019s been one of the best players in the tournament, period.<\/p>\n #4 Leo Sahlin Wallenius, D (San Jose Sharks):<\/strong> Wallenius had an OK start to the tournament, but he scored a goal and added an assist today for one of the best overall performances from a defender this week. LSW has the opportunity to be Sweden\u2019s No. 1 defender this year thanks to the way he can dominate the play with the puck while displaying a high level of confidence. I liked how dangerous he was in open space today, and I hope we get to see more of that going forward.<\/p>\n #29 Alexander Zetterberg, RW (Undrafted): <\/strong>Zetterberg had a pair of assists today, showing that his creativity outweighs his small frame. He has always been productive with Sweden in international play and should be utilized as a secondary scoring threat in December. Zetterberg doesn\u2019t look much stronger than he did in his draft year, which isn\u2019t great. But Zetterberg is as good of a playmaker as you\u2019ll find on a team like this.<\/p>\n USA<\/strong><\/p>\n #9 Cole Eiserman, LW (New York Islanders):<\/strong> This was Eiserman\u2019s first game of the tournament, and he was one of USA\u2019s top shot generators. He fired plenty of shots toward Herman Liv, and while he didn\u2019t score, he was one of the most noticeable Americans. I love how he loves to get pucks on net no matter what, and I like how energetic he was, even in the summer. Eiserman will be back on USA for a final WJC this winter and I expect big things from him.<\/p>\n #17 Ryker Lee, RW (Nashville Predators):<\/strong> Lee has been in these breakdowns every single day so far, and for a good reason. His creativity has been off the charts, and both of his assists today were outstanding. Lee reads plays so well, and his passes are as accurate as they get. Lee feels like a lock to make the United States in December with the way he\u2019s playing \u2013 let\u2019s see if he can continue his hot play in college.<\/p>\n #8 AJ Spellacy, C (Chicago Blackhawks):<\/strong> Spellacy won\u2019t wow you with his offense, but you\u2019ll always love his work ethic. He shoved anyone who got near him, won a ton of battles and created havoc around the net. I could see Spellacy fitting in as a perfect fourth-liner for USA \u2013 he\u2019s built like a tank, and you need guys like that to get aggressive and make noise. It\u2019s been a good week for Spellacy overall.<\/p>\n Canada 3, Finland 6<\/p>\n Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n #24 Porter Martone, RW (Philadelphia Flyers): <\/strong>Martone scored the opening goal of the game, creating a rebound and making no mistake. I thought he looked good the rest of the way and was one of the few Canadians who seemed to be engaged in the offensive zone. That wasn\u2019t enough to get the offense to shake things up, though, and Canada ultimately lost the game. I think he has had two solid showings overall, however.<\/p>\n #42 Matthew Schaefer, D (New York Islanders)<\/strong>: It\u2019s been good to see him back playing in game situations again over the past two days. His skating is already back up to par, and I thought he made some great passes throughout the game, too. He still needs to work on his decision-making under pressure at full game pace again, but he played well today.<\/p>\n Finland<\/strong><\/p>\n #24 Atte Joki, C (Dallas Stars):<\/strong> Joki was ultimately thrown out for a hit on Kashawn Aitcheson. However, I still believe he was one of the best forwards out there today. He won a couple of faceoffs, took space away defensively and finished with a goal and an assist. I liked how hard he chased after pucks and how he never stopped moving today. He feels like a solid fourth-line center.<\/p>\n #11 Onni Kalto, LW<\/strong> (Undrafted)<\/strong>: Who expected to see Kalto become the hero today? The undrafted forward was everywhere on the ice today, making some excellent plays and finishing with three points. He was great on the penalty kill, blocking some shots and stealing the puck multiple times from Canadian players who should not have given up the puck. I didn\u2019t know much about Kalto, but I was very impressed with what I saw today.<\/p>\n #9 Aatos Koivu, RW (Montreal Canadiens):<\/strong> At this point, I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s anything he can\u2019t do. Koivu has done such a great job of exploiting open ice, and his power-play goal gave his team so much life. A second goal early in the third period the game to rest. He has been Finland\u2019s best throughout the entire tournament and should remain a key piece of the team at the various other U-20 tournaments this year. I\u2019m still not convinced that he\u2019s going to be an NHL player, but I have absolutely loved him in Minnesota<\/p>\n #1 Kim Saarinen, G (Seattle Kraken):<\/strong> Saarinen clearly wants the starter\u2019s job. Canada tested him often early, and he did give up the first goal off a Porter Martone breakaway. But after that, Saarinen was Unstoppable, looking as dominant as I\u2019ve ever seen him play at the national team level. He was athletic, but didn\u2019t overextend himself when he didn\u2019t need to. I love everything he brought to the table today, and he was a huge reason why Finland won this game.<\/p>\n #28 Heikki Ruohonen, C (Philadelphia Flyers): <\/strong>Ruohonen has had an extremely impressive tournament. The Finns don\u2019t have a lot of highly skilled players, but guys like him work their tail off all game long and can wear you down. He made some great plays today, but none better than the effort that led to the 5-1 goal early in the third period. <\/strong>Konsta Helenius will likely be Finland\u2019s No. 1 center in December, but I think Ruhonen deserves all the praise he\u2019s getting this week.<\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n SPONSORED BY bet365<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All four nations played in the World Junior Summer Showcase for the first time this week, with Sweden…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":106888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-106887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}