Nashville Predators WJC Recap

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Mar 2, 2002
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3 Players ended up tied for the scoring lead at the World Junior Championships and two of them are Nashville Predators prospects. Here's the breakdown of how the future Nashville Predators performed at the tournament.

USA
Erik Johnson
Erik made a few mistakes early on but once he got comfortable, he was dominant in the defensive zone as well as offensively. Scored a whopping 4 goals and 6 assists in 7 games and led his team to the bronze medal.

Canada
Ryan O'Marra
Scored 2 assists and ended up +1 despite playing most of the time against the opposing team's top line. O'Marra showed again how responsible he is defensively and throwed some good hits in this tournament. He should end up as a premier two-way forward in the NHL in a few years.

Finland
Jesse Joensuu
In his 3rd WJC Joensuu was a dissappointment again. 1 goal and 1 assist along with a -2 rating do not reflect the success he had this season in the SM-Liiga.

Mikko Lehtonen
Biggest surprise of all Nashville prospects in this tournament. It was known Lehtonen has the skills to be a top prospect, but this kind of breakout was not expected. Lehtonen played on the finnish top line with Perttu Lindgren and Oskar Osala and scored 4 goals and 6 assists in only 6 games, tied for the scoring lead with fellow Predator Erik Johnson and linemate Lindgren.

Kai Kantola
Was ruled ineligible to play for Finland just before the tournament started, however has made the best of it back in Bowling Green, scoring 1 goal and 3 assists in 2 games.

Russia
Semen Varlamov
One could make an argument that Varlamov was the best goaltender at the WJC, however this honour was received by Carey Price who was equally dominant and won the gold medal. Varlamov ended up with a 93,4% save percentage and only 1,5 GAA.

Czech Republic
Tomas Kudelka
Playing on a challenged Czech team, Kudelka was assigned defensive duties most of the time. He scored 1 goal and 2 assists, good for 11th among defensemen at the tournament.
 

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