Merry Christmas to hockey fans all across the world. December 26th is always the best day of the year because for the next 11 days, we get to watch one of the greatest international tournaments of the year. The 2019 IIHF World Junior Championships get underway today in Vancouver and as always, this tournament is absolutely loaded with star power all over the ice. We’ll get to see the consensus 1st and 2nd overall picks in the upcoming 2019 draft with Jack Hughes for Team USA and Kaapo Kakko for Team Finland. We’ll get to see the consensus 1st overall pick in the 2020 draft in Alexis Lafreniere for Team Canada. We’ll get to see future stars in the NHL like Eeli Tolvanen, Max Comtois, Morgan Frost, Quinn Hughes, Filip Zadina, Adam Boqvsit, Evan Bouchard and more. Those are just 10 must-watch prospects off the top of my head that will be competing at this year’s World Juniors and there’s at least 10 more. The future of the NHL is already in great hands with young super stars like Connor McDavid, Patrik Laine, Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner and company leading the way. And some of the players you’ll see in this year’s tournament will be there shortly to join them.

Now I’ve already said that I prefer when the World Juniors aren’t hosted in North America because I think this tournament is always the best when we get to wake up at like 7am and already have some great hockey to watch. The fact that the tournament is in Vancouver and Victoria this year is tough considering the majority of Team USA’s games won’t be until 10pm EST. But I figured since we have a little bit of time to kill this morning before the tournament gets going at 4pm, we’d put all the preview blogs together just so everybody can sound smart when they’re talking to their buds about the tourney. But before we get to reposting the previews, some predictions are in order.

Jordie’s 2019 WJC Top Point Scorer Prediction:

It’s gotta be Eeli Tolvanen for Team Finland. It’s his 3rd and final appearance at the World Juniors, and I think he’s going to make a mockery out of the tournament this year. He had 19 goals and 36 points as a rookie last year in the KHL. This year he got a few games with the Predators and scored a goal and an assist, and has been spending the majority of the year with the Milwaukee Admirals in the AHL. I think there’s a solid chance we see Tolvanen with the Predators during the playoffs later this year and maybe it could come even sooner than that with some of the injury issues Nashville is having. I think this is going to be a big tournament for goal scorers to begin with so the point total might need to be closer to 15 if you want to be at the top. The fact that Finland has to play USA and Sweden in the preliminary rounds won’t make life easier for him but I still think he gets it done.

Jordie’s 2019 WJC Medal Predictions:

Medal predictions are always the worst part of these preview blogs each year because you never know how the brackets are going to shape up so there’s a chance the Gold/Silver predictions could end up facing each other in the semifinal which would obviously fuck with the medal order in the end. But I’m not one to make excuses so here is my 100% correct and factual and unbiased opinion on how this year’s tournament will shape up. I love this country but I love being right more.

Gold: Canada

Silver: Finland

Bronze: USA

4th: Sweden

2019 WJC Key Games To Watch:

Wed. December 26

• USA vs Slovakia @ 6pm
• Sweden vs Finland @ 10pm

Fri. December 28

• Russia vs Czech @ 8pm
• USA vs Kazakhstan @ 10pm

Sat. December 29

• Czech vs Canada @ 8pm
• USA vs Sweden @ 10pm

Mon. December 31

• Canada vs Russia @ 8pm
• USA vs Finland @ 10pm

Today’s Schedule:

Obviously I’ll be having the live blogs going for all Team USA games throughout the tournament again. Also, I’ll be posting streaming links but r/NHLstreams on Reddit is your friend. If anybody asks me for a streaming link to a specific game, the answer is always going to come from r/NHLstreams. So feel free to cut out the middle man (me) and just check their yourself.

2019 World Juniors Previews

Group B Part 1 Preview: Team USA

Group A Preview (Canada, Czech Republic, Russia, Switzerland, Denmark)

Group B Part 2 Preview (Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, Kazakhstan)

I’ll see everybody at 6 for the USA vs Slovakia live blog. Have yourselves a day, everybody.

@BarstoolJordie