While the second round of the NHL playoffs takes place, the world of ice hockey turns ice to the IIHF World Championship in Slovakia. The event, which starts on 10th May 2019, will be packed with the Elite of National Hockey League players. STATSCORE will deliver the fats LIVE data for all games!
TOP OF THE TOPS
Every year when the tournament is approaching, the subject is which players will join their teams. This time the number of players leaving their clubs in NHL and coming to Slovakia is impressing. As usual, Sweden, Russia and Canada are among the favourites. Czech Republic, Finland, USA or Slovakia are considered as strong competitors.
Sweden will try to win an impressive third consecutive gold medal. Henrik Lundqvist, Elias Pettersson, William Nylander or Patric Hornqvist will represent their nation in the 2019 IIHF World Championship. It is known that the Tre Kronor will consist of 17 NHL players. Whoa!
Team Sweden will have to face the Russians in the preliminary round game in Bratislava. After a 4-year absence, Alexander Ovechkin is coming back to join the Russian National Team. Evgeni Malkin, Artyom Anisimov, Andrei Vasilevskiy or Evgeny Kuznetsov have also confirmed their participation.
Canada is the first country, which comes to the head when you think of hockey. It is still considered to be Canada’s national game. The Canadian star, Sidney Crosby, will not represent his home country at the upcoming World Hockey Championship. Alain Vigneault will lead Canada’ s National Team as the head coach. Thanks to the strong squad including young stars and some veterans, Canada has a great chance to defeat rivals in this year’ s tournament.
HOSTS LIKE NO OTHERS
Slovakia, the host of the 2019 IIHF World Championship, can count on the support from thousands of local fans, who will turn up to the venues. The team would do their best to return to the successes from the 2000’s – a golden age of hockey in Slovakia. It was a memorable moment for the proud nation when Slovakia was the gold-medal winning team during the 2002 World Championship.
The country has produced a number of top players as Zdeno Chara, Miroslav Satan, Marian Gaborik or Pavol Demitra. Today, despite a limited number of NHL players, Slovakia will still try to do their best to be considered as a strong competitor.
Team USA enters the 2019 Championship with 3 brown medals that were gained during the last 10 years.
Czech Republic National is regarded as one of the most successful teams due to their squad with even 10 NHL players. The input of the experience from the top world league can help them to deliver better results.
A potential dark horse? Germany! They will try to repeat their success from the 2018 Olympic Winter Games when they won a silver medal. That was their best result in recent history. Germany is relying on players from their domestic league, the DEL, together with Edmonton Oilers star Leona Draisatl.
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