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EP Rinkside's 3 Stars from Day 2 of the 2024 World Juniors

World Juniors 2024
2023-12-27, 22:26
David St-Louis
Lead Scout
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This is a great day for the German hockey program. For the first time ever at the World Juniors, they beat Team Finland. And it wasn’t a fluke victory either. Far from it. Germany controlled the play for large stretches of the game, trading scoring chances and powerplays with the opposition. 

Twice, Finland got ahead on the scoreboard and, twice, Germany came back. Then, Veit Oswald, the hero of the game, earned his team the lead with his second goal late in the third period. A late penalty gave Finland a chance to equalize, but Germany’s strong defence held on like for most of the game and won four to three. 

This historic victory was bound to happen, considering the recent, opposite trajectory of these two hockey programs. Germany is on a rapid ascent on the world stage, producing more top talents and bringing deeper teams to tournaments, while Finland’s prospects have struggled to establish themselves over the past few years. 

It’s not over for Finland, however. A dominant performance against Latvia and a big win against Sweden later in the tournament could put them back on track. 

Canada demolished Team Latvia later in the day. They controlled the play, scored a couple of times on the powerplay, and then Macklin Celebrini ran up the score, picking points left and right. This result was expected, but as we’ve seen teams falter against weaker opposition at the tournament, it was still good to see the Canadian take advantage of their opportunity to hone up their offensive skills and develop chemistry. 

The Daily Scoreboard

Slovakia 3 - Switzerland 0 

Germany 4 - Finland 3

Czechia 8 - Norway 1

Canada 10 - Latvia 0

Macklin Celebrini, C, Canada (2024 NHL Draft)

Macklin Celebrini’s dynamic skills proved too much to handle for Latvia. He finished the night with five points. He drove the middle of the offensive zone and dropped the puck to Brayden Yager, removing the defence and setting up his shot perfectly, and he scored off a breakaway by slipping in between two Latvian defencemen. He also added a trio of assists with quick passes to teammates in transition and off a faceoff. 

And he wasn’t just good offensively.. He supported teammates on the backcheck and on breakouts, breaking plays and providing them timely passing options, and even as the goals started piling up, he never took his foot off the gas. 

Celebrini is not only skilled, but highly competitive. He cares about the details of the play. 

Few 17-year-olds manage to dominate at the World Juniors, but Celebrini could be on his way to one of the better performances we’ve seen for a player of this age historically at the tournament. 

Adam Gajan, G, Slovakia (Chicago Blackhawks)

After an intense game against Czechia to open the tournament, Slovakia didn’t look their best in their matchup today. Switzerland, the clear underdogs, fired 36 times at Slovakia’s net. Adam Gajan stopped everything. Well positioned, the Chicago Blackhawks prospect made many of these saves look easy. Even this particular stop, where he had to move across the full open cage, didn’t look particularly difficult for him. 

He got there with a couple of powerful and controlled pushes and he managed to cover much of the net against the shot. The Swiss player could only aim high. And Gajan’s glove was right there, waiting for the puck. 

Gajan accustomed us to strong performances like this in past International tournaments and he’s continuing to bolster his reputation as a big-stage player. 

Jiří Kulich, W, Czechia (Buffalo Sabres)

Jiří Kulich’s shot is Czechia’s greatest weapon in this tournament. And they know it. Over and over, they load up the winger’s release, on the powerplay and at five-on-five. The game turned into a duel between goalie and shooter in the first two periods, with Kulich hammering pucks and Markus Røhnebæk Stensrud coming across to stop him. But despite the goalie’s best efforts, one can’t stop Kulich's release. He fires them too hard and places them too well. 

He first beat Stensrud far-side here by aiming between the goalie’s arm and leg. 

And then, he prepared this second powerplay release very well. He faked a first release and instead passed the puck, making Stensrud move away from his post, and then hammered the puck there as he got it back. The shot squeaked past the goalie in the same spot as before. 

And he finished the night and his hat-trick by driving the net to slam in a rebound, showing some power forward skills. 

Canada is winning, but…

The World Juniors is a short tournament. Coaches have to act rapidly on the feedback they get from their team. Canada is winning, but maybe they would find even more success with other line combinations. That’s probably why the coaching staff redistributed the ice-time and started experimenting at the end of the Latvia game. 

Matthew Wood and Carson Rehkopf, seemingly the team’s 12th and 13th forwards since the start of the tournament, could potentially bring more to the team than some of the players who have been regularly slotted higher in the lineup, like Easton Cowan and Jordan Dumais. These two made as big of an impact as anticipated so far. 

Wood and Rehkopf bring a rare combination of size, physical ability, and skill. Plus, Wood developed chemistry with Celebrini at the World Championship Under-18. The projected first overall pick is already dominating many of his shifts, but next to Wood, he could find even more scoring opportunities. And Rehkopf already scored one of the best goals of the tournament. 

The highlight of the day

In Rehkopf, the Seattle Kraken might have found one of the steals of the 2023 draft. The winger leads the OHL in goals, with 31 in 31 games, and he showed exactly why against Team Latvia. He picked up the puck from Celebrini in the neutral zone, faked a defender with a toe-drag move, skated around him, protected the puck as he drove the net, and dangled the goalie. 

Game Over - Review of the Canada game

Elite Prospects Director of North American Scouting Mitch Brown joins SDPN's Game Over show to talk about Team Canada’s dominant victory over Team Latvia and discuss some of the best performances at the tournament so far, from a statistical perspective. 

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