Seven of the Seattle Kraken headed over to Prague to play in the IIHF World Championships shortly after the season ended. The World Championships are an annual international men’s ice hockey tournament that is organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation. This tournament typically takes place at the same time as the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the location changes yearly. This year, it was held from May 10th through May 26th at the O2 Arena and the Ostravar Aréna, which are both located in Prague, Czechia.
There are 16 countries that participate yearly, and they are divided into two separate groups. Group A consists of Switzerland, Canada, Czechia, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Great Britain, and Austria. Group B consists of Sweden, Germany, USA, Slovakia, Latvia, France, Kazakhstan, and Poland. Each team plays 7 games in the preliminary round.
As far as the scoring system goes, points to each player are the same as the scoring system in the NHL, and the IIHF awards 3 points to a team for a regulation win, 2 for an overtime win, and 1 for an overtime loss.
The finals are a bit different than what we’re used to in the NHL, the IIHF websites explanation says “The top-four ranked teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals that will be played cross-over. The first-place team in each preliminary-round group plays the fourth-place team of the other group, while the second-place team plays the third-place team of the other group. 1A-4B, 2A-3B, 1B-4A, 2B-3A. The venues and time slots of the games will officially be determined following the conclusion of the preliminary round.
In the semi-finals, the best-ranked team – criteria: 1) placement in the group, 2) points in the preliminary round, 3) goal difference in the preliminary round, 4) goals scored in the preliminary round, 5) seeding coming into the tournament – will play against the lowest-ranked semi-finalist. The 2nd-best ranked semi-finalist will play the 3rd-best ranked semi-finalist. Both semi-final games will be played in Prague. The host, if qualified, or otherwise the best-ranked semi-finalist according to the aforementioned criteria, shall play the early game. The time slots will officially be determined after the quarter-final games.
The Kraken gave the green light to Pierre-Edouard Bellemare to play for France, Philipp Grubauer to play for Germany, Jared McCann, Brandon Tanev, and Jamie Oleksiak to play for Canada, Andre Burakovsky to play for Sweden and Tomas Tatar to play for Slovakia.
Preliminary Round
Team Canada finished first in Group A with nineteen points, five regulation wins, and two overtime wins. Out of those points, Brandon Tanev had the most, with two goals and one assist. Jared McCann and Jamie Oleksiak both had two points. McCann had two goals and one assist, while Oleksiak had two assists. In the game against Norway on the 16th, the players from the Kraken were on fire, with Tanev scoring a goal in the first, Oleksiak scoring in the second, and McCann scoring, with an assist by Oleksiak and Canada’s goalie, Nico Daws (New Jersey Devils) in the third to close out the game. The assist earned Daws an infamous McCann goalie kiss.
As far as the rest of the Kraken, Team Sweden was ranked first, undefeated in Group B, with twenty-one points and seven regulation wins. Andre Burakovsky makes up ten of those points with four goals and six assists, two of those points came from the May 13th game against Team Germany with Philipp Grubauer in net. During that match up Burakovsky assisted on Victor Oloffsson’s (Buffalo Sabres) goal during the first and got his second goal of the tournament during the second period.
Team Germany is in third place with fifteen points and five wins. Grubauer has a 5-2 record with 114 saved out of 138 shots on goal so far. Following Germany is Team Slovakia in third place with three regulation wins, one overtime win, one overtime loss, two regulation losses, and twelve points. Tomas Tatar makes up half of Slovakia’s points with one goal and five assists. His first goal came in the first period of the May 15th match against Team Poland.
Coming in seventh for Group B is Team France with just one win, one overtime loss, five overtime losses and four points. Bellemare holds two of those points with one assist and one goal during the game against Poland.
The teams that will be advancing to the quarter-finals are Canada, Switzerland, Czechia, Finland, Sweden, USA, Germany and Slovakia. Team France will unfortunately not be advancing to the quarter-finals.
Quarter Finals
The quarter-finals took place on May 23rd the matchups and final scores were
Canada (6) vs Slovakia (3)
Switzerland (3) vs Germany (1)
USA (0) vs Czechia (1)
Sweden (2) vs Finland (1)
The winners of these games advanced to the semifinals. Team Germany with Grubauer, and Team Slovakia with Tatar have been eliminated but Team Canada and Team Sweden will go on to play in the next round.
During the Team Canada game, McCann opened up the first period with a goal, and the game was closed out in the third with back-to-back goals, 20 seconds apart, from Dylan Guenther (Arizona Coyotes) and Brandon Tanev. These goals put McCann at three points and Tanev at four points for the tournament.
A final glance at Grubauer’s stats this tournament is a 5-3 record with 136 saved out of 162 shots on goal.
Semifinals
The semifinals took place on May 25th the matchups and finals scores were
Sweden (3) vs Czechia (7)
Canada (2) vs Switzerland (3)
The winners of these games advanced to play for gold, and the losing teams advanced to play for bronze.
Tanev closed out the second period and put Team Canada on the board with a goal assisted by Olen Zellweger (Anaheim Ducks) and Pierre-Luc Dubois (Los Angeles Kings.) The game ended up going into overtime and a shootout where unfortunately, Team Switzerland won sending Canada to play for Bronze.
Finals
The finals took place on May 26th the matchups and final scores were
Sweden (4) vs Canada (2) for the bronze medal
Switzerland (0) vs Czechia (3) for the gold medal
Team Sweden took the bronze this year, with Burakovsky getting an assist on Erik Karlsson’s (Pittsburgh Penguins) goal in the third period.
Team Canada wasn’t quite as lucky this year and this is the first time since 2014 that both Canada and USA will not medal at the Mens Worlds. Oleksiak had one final assist for the tournament on Dylan Cozens (Buffalo Sabres) goal in the second period.
Although there were no Kraken players going for gold this year, the match between Czechia and Switzerland was fast paced and well played by both teams. Both goals from Czechia came in the third period, the first was from David Pastrnak (Boston Bruins) and the second was from David Kampf (Toronto Maple Leafs.) Czechia took the gold on home ice.
