Showing Some International Love: Croatian Edition

After seeing how the first group was going (review soon…maybe), I realized one mistake that I won’t make again: not seeing the rosters. I realize that one player rarely dominants a game and wins it for their team, but seeing where some of the players play might help judge how competitive the team may end up being. Some teams (mainly Latvia at the top tier) have their roster 90% filled with guys from the same team (in Latvia’s case, their sole KHL team). While that would give the team an edge in chemistry over a team just thrown together, it’s a relatively small factor in helping a team succeed. While this theory doesn’t work for top teams like Canada and the U.S., seeing lower-division teams with players in higher leagues than their own countries can tell which team might have – at least on paper – a competitive advantage over others. But I digress…

Well how awesome is that, Croatia's hosting the damn thing (bias alert), even after being demoted from Division I last year. Now before I get depressed about that, here's the overview:

Division II - Group B (Host: Croatia)

World Ranking:
26. Croatia
28. Romania
31. Bulgaria
37. China
38. Iceland
41. Ireland

Prediction:
1 (Promoted) - Croatia
2 - Romania
3 - Bulgaria
4 - Iceland
5 - China
6 (Relegated) - Ireland

Bias aside, Croatia looks like the stronger team. Outside of Romania, there doesn't seem to be any real challengers. Bulgaria is a strong enough team to stay in the middle of the pack. It was tempting to pick Iceland as a dark horse (despite disappointing me before) but I took the safer bet and picked them to end up in the lower half of the group. China and Ireland will battle to stay in the Division. China gets the nod since they are more use to the competition at this level, but Ireland might be able to pull off an upset. The big reason that I’m not big on Ireland is that they had almost half the roster listed as playing for “Ireland”, meaning either they have a travelling national team, or they are all free agents (and I only say this as a guy who’s played way too much NHL EHM.)