New York Rangers prospects get set to play in WJC Quarter-Finals
The New York Rangers had 7 prospects playing at the Wold Junior Championship but are now down to six after round robin play.
Adam Sykora, whom the Rangers just selected in the second-round of the 2022 NHL Draft will be heading home with Team Slovakia after finishing last in Group A.
Team Canada took Group A by going 4-0 for 12 points, while scoring 27 goals and giving up 7. In Group B, it was Team USA in first with a 4-0 record on the strength of 22 goals for and only 4 against.
New York Rangers prospects going for Gold
Monday was the last day of round-robin play and it witnessed another solid performance by Brennan Othmann for Canada.
Although limited in action, Othmann opened the scoring as they went on to beat the Team Finland by a 6-3 margin.
Fellow Rangers prospect Will Cuylle was assessed a five-minute major for kneeing, which gave the Finns a 5 on 3 advantage.
“I think the biggest thing is we fight through that adversity. It doesn’t matter if we get a five-minute penalty or we’re down 1-0 early,” Othmann said. “Either way, we stick to the game plan, we stick with it. We have some highly skilled forwards, highly skilled defensemen, and we got a great goalie in net.”
Canada did indeed kill off those penalties and Dylan Garand won his third straight stopping 22 of 25 shots.
Othmann, the Rangers first-round pick in the 2021 Draft (16 overall) finished round-robin play with 2 goals, 4 assists, and 6 points in three games.
He was a scratch for Canada’s opening game after taking two bad penalties in exhibition action.
Kalle Vaisanen, another Blueshirts prospect registered an assist in the loss.
World Junior Championship Quarter-Finals
World Junior Championship Schedule (August 17)
No games are scheduled for today in Edmonton as Quarter-Finals matchups are set for Wednesday.
Team Finland is expected to get past Germany. Same for Team Canada as they take on Switzerland.
Two Rangers prospects will square off tomorrow in Brett Berard for Team USA, and possibly Jaroslav Chmelar of Team Czechia. The latter missed the last game due to injury after Brennan Othmann’s skate when Chmelar hit him from behind. The Czechia winger may have escaped further discipline by the IIHF on that play it appears.
- Finland (Vaisanen) vs. Germany 12 PM ET
- Sweden vs. Latvia 3:30 PM ET
- Canada (Othmann, Cuylle, Garand) vs. Switzerland 7 PM ET
- United States (Berard) vs. Czechia (Chmelar) 10:30 PM ET
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