By Racki, January 1, 2010 1:10 pm

The medal round begins...

I hope you’re all having a good 2010 so far and that the last party of 2009 was so memorable for you that you can’t remember it.

So, the preliminary round of the 2009 World Junior Hockey Championships have concluded, so we’ll take a look at how our Oilers prospects have faired. First off, for players of the game, Jordan Eberle has earned this award twice (vs. Switzerland and USA), Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson (vs. Czech Republic) and Teemu Hartikainen (vs. Russia) have each received the honor once.

Jordan Eberle is leading the way in scoring with 10 points (5 goals, 5 assists) with Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson one point behind with 9 points (3 goals, 6 assists). Svensson also scored a very nice goal yesterday against the Finns, in which he skated through pretty much the entire line and stepped in the zone and beat the goaltender with a nice shot. We can’t be excited about today’s team, but we can definitely be excited about tomorrow’s.

So here are the stats for the tourney at this point…

EDMONTON OILERS PROSPECT WATCH
Player	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-
Jordan Eberle		4	5	5	10	+2
Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson		4	3	6	9	+6
Anton Lander		4	2	2	4	+2
Teemu Hartikainen		4	3	1	4	0
Toni Rajala		4	1	2	3	+1

Canada and Sweden have both won their respective groups, undefeated, and earned a bye in the first game of the regulation round. The Finns finished the round 2-2. They’ve had a pretty difficult set of games so far though, so don’t count them out. They’ve played the Czechs (4-3 Win), the Russians (2-0 Loss), the Austrians (10-1 Win) and the Swedes (7-1 Loss). It won’t get any easier for them when they play the Americans on Saturday (7:00PM MST start). Sweden will play the winner of this game on Sunday (7:00PM MST). Canada will play the winner of Saturday’s Russia/Switzerland game (3:00PM MST start) on Sunday (3:00PM MST).

We’ll have a game day thread (GDT) up for you on Sunday for Canada’s first game of the regulation round.

UPDATE:
Here is the scehdule for the 2009 World Junior Hockey Championships Regulation Round:

7 Responses to “WJHC – Preliminary round wraps up”

1. MetalOil says:

   January 1, 2010 at 1:27 pm  MetalOil(Quote)

   Just finished watching the game on my PVR and wow. Jordan Eberle saves Canada’s bacon once again and now team Canada gets an extra day off and they can thank Eb’s for that. I cannot wait to see Jordan in an Oiler Jersey next season and I hope that he brings the same clutch goal scoring to the Oil drop. he is on the verge of becoming in my opinion the greatest Canadian Jr player off all time. Seriously has any other before him had as much an impact in the WJHC’s then Eberle has in his 2 years of service to the Jr team? We are watching the future captain of the Edmonton Oilers right here.
2. Hockey Noob says:

   January 1, 2010 at 2:20 pm  Hockey Noob(Quote)

   Strange how Eberle has 10 points and only a +2 rating when Team Canada had two shutouts.
3. Racki says:

   January 1, 2010 at 2:40 pm  Racki(Quote)

   Noob: Yah, I thought so too… but it’s been all PP, really (of course PK goals against and PP goals for do not affect +/-).
4. Racki says:

   January 1, 2010 at 2:47 pm  Racki(Quote)

   MetalOil: Just finished watching the game on my PVR and wow. Jordan Eberle saves Canada’s bacon once again and now team Canada gets an extra day off and they can thank Eb’s for that. I cannot wait to see Jordan in an Oiler Jersey next season and I hope that he brings the same clutch goal scoring to the Oil drop. he is on the verge of becoming in my opinion the greatest Canadian Jr player off all time. Seriously has any other before him had as much an impact in the WJHC’s then Eberle has in his 2 years of service to the Jr team? We are watching the future captain of the Edmonton Oilers right here.

   I’m actually just watching the 3rd period now. I had the outcome spoiled yesterday by SNET while watching the Oilers, despite all efforts to avoid the score. But oh well.. sounds like a game worth watching anyway!

   Edit: arghhhh.. I didn’t put on the 30-minute extension, like I normally do when recording, so the recording stopped a minute or so into OT. booo!! So how did the shootout go? Obviously we won… but in particular, how was Eberle?
5. Bostonoiler says:

   January 1, 2010 at 5:28 pm  Bostonoiler(Quote)

   Racki: Eberle scored in the SO
6. Racki says:

   January 2, 2010 at 4:15 pm  Racki(Quote)

   The Suiss goaltender (Conz) just robbed Nikita Filatov on a breakaway with a great glove save on a backhand. It may have been going wide, but still it was a nice save. The Suiss are currently leading 1-0, with 5 mins left in the 2nd. They’re playing really well, even with their top player out.
7. Racki says:

   January 2, 2010 at 4:22 pm  Racki(Quote)

   hmm… don’t start the miracle on ice speech just yet. Russians score back to back goals with under a minute left in the period.. 2-1.