The Puck Stops Here

Today, the World Junior Hockey Championships concluded with the medal games. Look back at the preliminary round, quarterfinals and semifinals with these links.

Bronze/4th Game USA 2 Sweden 1 Jeff Frazee (New Jersey prospect) played a strong game for the Americans stopping 25 of 26 shots. USA was paced by Erik Johnson (St Louis prospect) who had the winning goal and assisted on the earlier Pat Kane (2007 draft eligible) goal. The Sweden goal was scored by Patrik Zackrisson (undrafted in the NHL - Sweden has several undrafted forwards who produced including Lukas Omark and Martin Johansson. Does this indicate some kind of failure to properly scout in Sweden?). This was a solid game where either team could have won. USA wins bronze.

Gold/Silver Game Canada 4 Russia 2 Canada jumped out to a 4-0 lead on goals by Andrew Cogliano (Edmonton prospect), Bryan Little (Atlanta prospect), Jonathan Toews (Chicago prospect) - who also added an assist and Brad Marchand (Boston prospect). Russia attempted to fight back with goals from Pavel Valentenko (Montreal prospect) and Gennadi Churilov (undrafted in the NHL - an undrafted Russian is easier to understand than an undrafted Swede due to the lack of an NHL transfer agreement with Russia). The Russians pressed hard in the third period but ran out of time. Canada wins gold and Russia silver.