goaltending
John Gibson plays for Kitchener (Ducks property) and has played well above average in the OHL this year, although not great. he’s been outperformed by Malcom Subban (potential team canada starter) but apparently Subban has looked bad in tryouts so far. if Gibson is on his game, team USA has an advantage here, especially since canada has really struggled with goaltending in the WJC the last few years. backups Garret Sparks and Jon Gillies are both capable as well, although i’d much prefer Sparks over Gillies. i think Gillies was sort of a “we should grab an NCAA guy†move and won’t play in the actual tourney.
defense
this is by far team USA’s strength. there’s a lot of recognizable names here even for the casual hockey fan. potential #1 overall pick in next year’s NHL draft Seth Jones is going to be an anchor and most likely on the top pairing. Jacob Trouba (Jets property) is also a pretty well known guy on this list. Gostisbehere is the standout Union College defenseman who plays a little too aggressive offensively, but with the right coaching could easily figure it out. Skjei from U Minnesota, McCabe from U Wisconsin, Murphy from the Sarnia Sting, Grzelcyk from BU? I’m very impressed.
forwards
this is where i’m a little uncertain. Alex Galchenyuk is far and away the most talented player on this American squad, but he can only get you so far. he’s got little to no support. i’m a big fan of Stefan Noesen who plays for the plymouth whalers, he’s a ppg player with good size. Rocco Grimaldi is putting up good numbers with N Dakota but he’s super short. really concerns me. Trocheck who plays for Saginaw has been putting up pretty great numbers in the OHL and could definitely end up centering the first line. i like the hard work and toughness on this team too, definitely led be Stefan Matteau and JT Miller who are gonna have a long career of battling each other since they’re Devils and Rangers prospects (respectively).
overall
this is a good team, absolutely better than last year (which was a disgrace to USA Hockey, btw) but probably not as good as the 2010 team that won it all. maybe somewhere in between. i haven’t really looked into the rosters of anyone else except for Canada, but i’m not overly impressed with their roster either. i think the Russians are a team to look out for, as we’re just a few weeks removed from them playing pretty well against the CHL all-star teams. the team is going to play great defense and have solid goaltending, but i’m not sure if they can score enough to keep up against tougher opponents. of course, now that i wrote that they’re going to light up the scoreboard and the defense will collapse. we’ll see though.
