Reply To: World Jr’s – Speed of the Game

[Henry Acres]

Dman

http://www.tsn.ca has video on demand that should be available for people the world over. I am watching right now in Sweden.

I think the US has the right idea with development and we saw they put together a pretty good team this year. Canada, US, Sweden are a little bit ahead of the pack right now in Jr, but the gap just like with the Sr. teams seems to be closing. Even though Austria was relegated they impressed in the game I saw them against Sweden.

I did some coaching work in Finland last year and they are (want) to focus on developing more natural scorers and like everybody else d-men. Every team is always looking for strong overall d-man. The finns have the work ethic (sisu) to be competitive and have developed many good grinding players-they need the next Selanne. Some of the people I talked to this week were saying the Finnish media was disappointed in Michal Granlund. My reply was how much stronger he looked this year at this tournament-playing with HIFK in the SM-league he is a point a game player- and to me he looked like a much more developed player especially defensively in all zones. I reminded them he is a 17 year-old in 19 year old's tournament.

Adam Larrson #5 of Sweden-maybe didn't have a great tournament but he is the next stud d-man from that country if his head catches up to his size-talent level.