Catching Up With Blue Jacket’s Players in the IIHF World Championship

You may already know that there are nine different Columbus Blue Jacket‘s players or personnel at the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Czechia, but in case you haven’t been able to follow it here’s a few things to catch you up!

Here’s a reminder of what players are at the tournament and the country they are representing:

• Elvis Merzlikins – Goaltender for Latvia
• Damon Severson – Defenseman for Canada
• Gavin Brindley – Forward for team USA
• Johnny Gaudreau – Forward for team USA
• Zach Werenski – Defenseman for team USA

Here’s the personnel, their job with the Blue Jackets, then who they are representing for the tournament:

• Rick Nash, Director of Player Development – General Manager for Canada
• Mike Vogt, Head Athletic Trainer – Team USA
• Jamie Healy, Equipment Manager – Team USA
• Dustin Halstead, Assistant Equipment Manager – Team USA

The tournament has been going on for about a week now, and many favorites are emerging. The teams have been split into two groups and they are listed from the current highest ranked to the least and how many points they have.

Group A:

1. Canada – 11
2. Switzerland – 11
3. Czecha – 9
4. Finland – 7
5. Austria – 4
6. Norway – 3
7. Denmark – 3
8. Great Britain – 0

Group B:

1. Sweden – 12
2. Slovakia – 8
3. USA – 7
4. Latvia – 7
5. Germany – 6
6. France – 4
7. Kazakhstan – 3
8. Poland – 1

GM Rick Nash and d-man Damon Severson are leading group A with team Canada. Severson has played in all four games and the only stat he has right now is he is a +1. Team Canada also has young superstar Connor Bedard who has been a huge part of Canada’s success. In four games, he has five goals and one assist.

Latvia and USA are tied with points right now. Merzlikins has played in three of their four games. He has seen 72 shots on goal and 10 have gone in giving him a .861 save percentage. Latvia has one win in regulation time, two wins in overtime, and one loss.

Brindley made his debut in team USA’s most recent game, he has yet to create any stats. Gaudreau and Werenski have been making a big splash for Team USA, though. Werenski has played all four games, has one goal and one assist. Gaudreau has been racking up the points. In four games, he’s got two goals and four assists. He’s also in a three-way tie for tenth place in points rank among all players, and is tied for first with Matt Boldy for team USA. (Boldy is listed as number one because he’s got one more goal.)

Some shining moments were when Werenski was able to connect a pass to get the primary assist for a goal from Gaudreau in their most recent contest. Former Blue Jacket defenseman Seth Jones seemed to still have a connection with his former defensive partner Werenski when he performed a no look pass that Werenski hit into the net. Zach also scored the very first goal of the tournament for Team USA with a heavy slapshot near the left circle.

As the tournament goes on, keep an eye out for more articles like this. I’ll be keeping up with most of the tournament and, especially, what the Columbus Blue Jackets players are doing.