Blogging About The Montreal Canadiens and Canadiens Hockey

Well folks, it’s that time of the year again. The time where the best under-20 hockey players in the world in the top division come together and battle it out for a week and a half to find out which hockey nation has the best young talent. Canada is going for their sixth straight championship but it won’t be easy.

Last year it was P.K. Subban who represented the Canadiens on Team Canada but this year there are no Canadiens on Team Canada. We do have some prospects on other teams however, so let’s take a look at them. First off let’s look at what teams are in which group.

Group A: Canada, Slovakia, USA, Latvia, and Switzerland*
Group B: Sweden, Russia, Czech Republic, Finland, and Austria*

* Switzerland and Austria are the teams promoted after winning Division A last year.

In total, the Montreal Canadiens have four prospects representing three different countries in the top division with Finland containing the biggest representation so let’s start with them!

As I said above, Finland is playing two Montreal Canadiens in Petteri Simila, a goaltender for Niagara IceDogs in the Ontario Hockey League, and Joonas Nattinen, the 6′2″ center from the Espoo Blues of SM-liiga.

Petteri Simila hasn’t exactly had his best season, but considering it’s his first season playing in North America, a slow start is acceptable. He’s played 11 games with Niagara recording 1 win , 4 losses and 3 ties with an .891 save percentage and a 4.14 goals against average. Simila will be wearing jersey #28.

Joonas Nattinen is a big two-way center with very good vision and sees the game very well. Hockey’s Future has his ranked 9th among all Montreal Canadiens prospects. Nattinen is a guy you’ll see on an energy line in the NHL but I’m not sure where we’ll see in in the WJHC. He’ll be sporting jersey #29.

Moving onto Russia we have Maxim Trunev. Trunev has been an elusive prospect for the Habs as it’s unsure if he’ll ever come over the North America but his talent is unquestioned. Trunev is currently playing for the Cherepovets Severstal of the KHL and has recording 2 goals and 1 assist in 21 games. Just remember when those numbers don’t seem high, he’s only 19! This right-handed right winger will be in the #11 jersey.

Our last representative, playing for Team USA, is Danny Kristo. Kristo was drafted in the second round, 56th overall by the Canadiens and currently plays for the University of North Dakota. In 18 games this season Kristo has 6 goals and 10 assists along with 6 penalty minutes. This will be Kristo’s second straight WJHC. Last year he recorded 1 goal in 6 games with a +2 defensive rating and was mainly used as a third-liner but expect a bigger role from the tiny winger this year. Kristo will be dawning the #8 jersey this year.

Well, that’s it! WJCH action begins today, don’t miss any of it!

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Hey folks, here is a post providing you with daily links showing online streams of the exhibition and championship World Junior Hockey Championship games.

*** Note: This is a sticky thread. Continue past this thread for regular Montreal Canadiens news ***

January 5th
Sweden vs Switzerland 4:00pm EST TSN Stream, Justin.tv
Canada vs USA 8:00pm EST TSN Stream, Justin.tv

(more…)

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Louis Leblanc is the lone Canadiens prospect to make the elite list of junior players and judging by the rest of the names on the list it’s not going to be an easy trek for the young forward.

Leblanc’s international experience includes being a member of Team Quebec in the Under-17 Hockey Challenge and the 2007 Canada Winter Games, as well as helping Canada win gold in 2008 at the Under-18 Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament.

Leblanc is one of 37 newcomers to the WJC selection process out of 45 invites so you can expect to see a brand new team. Returning invitees include John Tavares, Cody Hodgson, Ryan Ellis, Patrice Cormier, and Evander Kane among others.

One player that I think many individuals will look out for is Taylor Hall as his draft year is coming up and is expected to go early in the first round.

Baring that Leblanc does not make the team, this would be great experience for him and would be a good gauge of his talent compared to players coming in from Europe and Russia.

For a complete list of invitees you can visit the TSN.ca website.

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The Montreal Canadiens have set themselves up to be great for years to come. With guys like Subban and McDonagh on the backend, and youngsters almost there, like Pacioretty and Maxwell.

Last night P.K. Subban led the way as the Canadian World Junior Squad took a hold of that gold medal and never looked back. The final score was 5-1 for Canada finishing off the drive for five in style.

Here are my thoughts on the Montreal Canadiens prospects in this tournament.

P.K. Subban – Won gold and had the best plus/minus rating in the tournament. He’s an offensive minded defenseman who can run the puck from one end of the ice to the other in seconds. Subban is quick and skilled with the puck but can sometimes be caught out of position. He finished the tournament with 3 Goals, 6 Assists, and 6 Penalty Minutes, while playing some big time minutes. He and Ryan Ellis were excellent Powerplay quarterbacks. Subban was also honored when he was named Top Three on the Canadian team, and also named to the Media All-Stars for the tournament.

Ryan McDonagh – McDonagh will be a top 2 Defenseman in any league that he plays in. He’s defensively sound and can play top minutes against the best, which he did in every game of the tournament. He didn’t and probably won’t put up a lot of points, but ended the tournament with 3 Assists, 2 Penalty Minutes and a +5 plus/minus rating, the highest on the team along with a couple of others. I can see McDonagh being the first of these WJHC prospects to break through to the NHL simply because he’s good at every aspect of his game, but not great, not yet.

Danny Kristo – Kristo was playing on the fourth line, at times playing higher, but never really found his game, nor a good playmaker. He played in all 6 games notching just one goal with a +2 plus/minus rating. He’s a real energy player and is quick on his feet. I’m sure that if he had some more space and time he would have scored more with his lethal wrist shot. I’m predicting Kristo will be a third/fourth line energy player, but some conditioning would go a long way.

Niklas Top – The last of a solid lineup of young defensive talent, Torp played on a dominating Swedish lineup and provided a mix of offensive and defensive play. He only had 1 Assist in the 6 games he played but ended up a +5 in plus/minus. Once Torp finds his game he’ll be an excellent 4-6 Defenseman, a Bouillon type player.

A little off-topic from my normal Montreal Canadiens talk, but if you didn’t see the gold medal game, I suggest you find it somewhere, somehow and watch it. Subban opened the scoring just two minutes into the first and the Canadians never looked back. Other goals of the game came from Angelo Esposito with an awesome backhand, Jordan Eberle, and Cody Hodgson who notched two including an empty net. The lone goal from Sweden came from Andersson.

I’m bewildered by Tokarski, I’m just not sure what to think about him. He’s had some excellent games earlier on, then in the U.S.A. game he let in three weak goals in the beginning, but was solid from then on. He was the same for the Russia game; Let in some weak goals but was solid at times. During the Sweden game we didn’t even see the shaky Tokarski, he played a solid 60 minutes. I suppose you could chalk it up to the fact that in both of those previous games he had a long break due to Pickard starts and our bye through the Quarters. Good on Tampa Bay.

I was a bit surprised at Sweden, I don’t think that they played as well as they should have. They have a lot of talent, but I didn’t really see them making smart plays.

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A great article about the Habs 3 prospects playing in tonights Canada/USA World Jr. Championship game, P.K. Subban, Ryan McDonagh and Danny Kristo.

 Rivals On The Ice, Buddies Off.  Hab Draft Picks Fuel The Canada/US Rivalry

Steve Milton, The Hamilton Spectator

They’ve been teammates before, and they’ll be teammates again — perhaps next year in Hamilton — but tonight, they’re under warring flags.

Two of the most important defencemen in tonight’s long-anticipated showdown at the world junior hockey championships are Montreal Canadiens’ property, born exactly one month apart, and separated by only 31 players in the 2007 National Hockey League draft.
 

Read More Here.

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A great article about the World Juniors Canada/Germany game and P.K. Subban’s end to end rush which lead to Evander Kane’s goal.

Damien Cox, TheStar.com

As one among an array of talented teens, P.K. Subban knows he doesn’t have to perform with eye-catching flair, doesn’t have to deliver a spin-a-rama or two per game and doesn’t have to be the riverboat gambler on defence some accuse him of being.

Read More Here.

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Canada never really expected Kazakhstan to be a challenge, but I doubt they expected a blowout either. The final score of this one was 15-0 for Team Canada with 10 different goal scorers, including 2 Goals for Montreal Canadien prospect, P.K. Subban.

Subban finished the game 2 Goals, 2 Assists, and a +6 defensive rating. Other notables in this game include Jamie Benn, a hat trick and 2 Assists, and Cody Hodgson with 2 Goals and 4 Assists.

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Team U.S.A with Ryan McDonagh and Danny Kristo faced off against the Germans today in round robin play at the World Junior Hockey Championships ending as an 8-2 win for the U.S.

Ryan McDonagh ended the game with an Assist and 2 Penalty Minutes, while Danny Kristo managed just one shot in the second period and no points. Both players were a +2 in this game but weren’t very noticeable among an elite U.S. team.

I would hope to have seen a bit more from these two players but it’s only early in the tournament so I’m not giving up all hope yet.

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P.K. Subban is such a mature player and I can see him being a great blueliner for the Montreal Canadien some day. He has some things to work on but no one is perfect at 19. He can also be very dramatic, ala when he was discussing the John Tavares goal against Slovakia.

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Tonight is the final Exhibition game of the World Junior Hockey Championships before the tournament starts on Friday, December 26th. In the last game against Finland the Canadians had some troubles in the beginning but quickly came back and finished witha 7-3 win.

Subban ended the game with two Assists and looked much better than the last game. He maintained better positioning, expecially on the Power play which is nice to see. He should be excellent in a year or two with the Bulldogs and should crack the Canadiens roster in about 3 years.

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