Friday, April 13, 2012

Showing Some International Love: Division I Group A Preview

Usually since both groups start at the same time I'd put them in the same post. Well if Division II can be split up why can't Division I? Before I start, I got to say this new relegation system is dumb. The last place team now gets demoted to Group B? It just sounds wrong. Doesn't it make more sense to be bumped down to Division II? Being relegated to Division I Group B sounds like a sideways move. Anyway let's begin in the land of the Kopitar's.

Division I - Group A (Host: Slovenia)

World Ranking
15. Austria
18. Slovenia
19. Ukraine
20. Hungary
21. Great Britain
22. Japan

Prediction
1 (Promoted) - Austria
2 (Promoted) - Slovenia
3 - Hungary
4 - Great Britain
5 - Ukraine
6 (Relegated) - Japan

If this isn't a battle to get back into the World Championship's main tournament then I don't know what is. Slovenia is missing there top guy to the playoffs (Kopitar) and Austria's top guy is injured (Vanek). At the time of writing this Slovenia has yet to release their roster, so I can't gauge how they'll fare against Austria. At the other end, seeing Grabner with Austria is hard to ignore the type of impact he'll have. In the end Austria probably squeaks out the win and gets the promotion.

Hungary is almost guaranteed the third spot unless they build a time machine back to 2008. More likely Zoltan Hetenyi will again start over Levente Szuper, but having those two as your goalies is pretty good in this level. What surprises me about this roster is that they have a guy from the AHL (Daniel Koger). As usual they are the only dark horse pick, just don't bet on them when they face Austria and Slovenia.

Great Britain is...well...Great Britain: A middle-of-the-pack team that won't finish higher than 3rd and no lower than 5th. Legendary British player (and Oiler draftee) Tony Hand is behind the bench for the first time as an international coach. There shouldn't be much expectation for this team: just avoid relegation is good enough.

I must have missed something about Ukraine. As with almost every former USSR-turned-independent country, 90% of their players are from one or two teams. There are only two names I recognize (Sergi Varlamov and Alexei Mikhnov), other than that they look like a shell of the teams that would regularly participate in the main tournament. They aren't bad enough to be relegated, but they aren't good enough to get out of Division I.

Someone has to move down and it's more likely Japan will be that team. After withdrawing last year because of the earthquake/tsunami disaster last year, Japan is back and will be trying to avoid relegation. The lost year does hurt the team's development on the international stage. Funny tidbit: They have 3 Japanese Collegiate players on the team, yet there GM isn't named Burke.

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