Jets at the 2019 Juniors: Day One Recap

The World Junior Hockey Championships are officially underway as eight of the ten teams began their tournament on Boxing Day. Jetsnation is going to be putting out frequent updates during the tournament with the latest news regarding the Jets prospects as well as other tournament news. In case you aren’t sure who the Jets prospects are, check out our tournament preview.

The tournament began with Czech Republic barely scraping by Switzerland. The teams traded goals in the second period but were both held scoreless in the third which meant the first game of the tournament headed to overtime. It was Czech Republic who scored the overtime winner to take game one.

Game two saw the first of the Jets prospects hit the ice as Dylan Samberg suited up for the USA. This was another close game as Slovakia took the lead in the second period. The States fought back and tied the game before notching the winning goal in the third period. Samberg played a total of 18:40 and had an assist on the winning goal. He also finished the game with three shots on goal. The USA get the night off as they take on Kazakhstan tomorrow night.

The third game of the day was the one that all Canadian’s were looking forward to. Canada got to play Denmark and most people thought it would be a fairly easy victory. Well, that would be an understatement if you watched the game. Canada dominated the game from the beginning until the very end. It was an impressive performance from team Canada as they scored early and often and cruised to a 14-0 victory. Morgan Frost had a hat-trick and two assists while Maxime Comtois had four goals. Nobody quite expected this type of firepower from team Canada but there will certainly be tougher tests down the road.

Canada gets right back in action as they take on Switzerland tonight.

The last game of the day had the other two Jets prospects facing off. It was Gustafsson and the Swedes against Virtanen and the Finns. Sweden got off to a solid start and scored in the first and the second period. Finland tried to rally late in the third period but they fell just short by a score of 2-1. Both Virtanen and Gustafsson had two penalty minutes although neither team got scored on during the ensuing power play. Virtanen played 14:13 and had no shots while Gustafsson finished the night with two shots and 12:58 of ice time.

Both Finland and Sweden are back on the ice today as they take on Kazakhstan and Slovakia respectively.