WWYDW: Oh, Canada?

The World Cup of Hockey is back after a 12-year hiatus and set to start in just over a week. Whether you care about the tournament or not, that means hockey is on the horizon and semi-competitive hockey at that.

Now, there are a few key differences between this year’s incarnation of the on again, off again tournament but none as interesting as the two motley crew rosters assembled under the auspices of European and North American affiliation. If you like an underdog or the story of a rag-tag group of people from varying backgrounds, etc. look no further.

Basically, it’s two non-Canadian teams you can cheer on more or less guilt free. I mean, maybe more so for Team North America, but still. Which has me wondering, which of the participating teams at the World Cup of Hockey are you cheering for? Sticking with Canada? Or are you going off the board?

Tell me who you’re cheering on and why!

Last week I asked: Using the Canucks Army method, which means any Calder Trophy eligible prospect, who cracks your top best twenty, ten or five list, and in what order?

You rank them by ceiling, potential for success, size and positional importance:

starting goaltender top pairing defencemen top line centre top line winger second pairing defencemen second line centre second line winger back-up goaltender third pairing defencemen third line centre third line winger fourth line centre fourthline winger pressbox

That gives me a top ten ranking of:

Demko Juolevi Tryamkin Boeser Brisebois Rodin Garteig Pedan Olson Gaunce

1. Juolevi 2. Demko 3. Boeser 4. Rodin 5. Subban 6. Gaunce 7. Tryamkin 8. Olsen 9. Zhukenov 10. Cassels

froger84 is on to something. But I would add replacement value to the mix. So I would adjust the positional rankings as follows:

Tier 1 prospects: Top pairing D, 1st line C, 1st line W, starting goalie

Tier 2: 2nd line C, 2nd pairing D, 2nd line W,

Tier 3: 3rd line C, 3rd pair D, 3rd line W.

Tier 4: Anyone else that might play in NHL – not really much of a prospect.

So, I would go with: Tier 1: Juolevi, Boeser, Demko

Tier 2: Tryamkin, Olson, Subban, Brisebois, Rodin

Tier 3: Zhukenov, Cassels, Gaunce, Pedan, Stecher, Candella, Neill, Jasek

Tier 4: Meh.

The lack of Tier 1/2 centres on this list is troubling….

I arbitrarily made my cut-off for prospects to be players who have 0 NHL games experience: accordingly, Anton Rodin and Tom Nilsson qualified for consideration, while Gaunce and Virtanen did not. This left me with 27 players to choose from: 15 signed, 12 unsigned.

Instead of a top-10, I’ll go with a top-5 forwards and top-5 dmen. For goalies, Demko is clearly better than Garteig.

Forwards: 1. Boeser; 2. Rodin; 3. Zhukenov; 4. Carcone; 5. Stukel.

Defensemen: 1. Juolevi; 2. Subban; 3. Brisebois; 4. Olson; 5. Neill.

I’d say:

Top tier, can’t miss prospects 1. Juolevi 2. Boeser 3. Demko

Clearly NHL talent, but not clearly stars 4. Rodin 5. Subban 6. Gaunce 7. Tryamkin

Questionable whether they will be NHL players, but potential ceilings are as NHL regulars 8. Zhukenov 9. Pedan 10. Olson 11. Stecher 12. Neill 13. Brisebois 14. Candella

Long shots to stick long term in the NHL at any capacity 15. Gaudette 16. Grenier 17. Jasek 18. Garteig 19. Lockwood 20. Cassels