Can the U.S.'s Cole Caufield set a new single-tournament goals record in his second World Juniors?
photo: Andrea Cardin / HHOF-IIHF Images
As the ancient Latin proverb says, “Fortune favours the bold.” Anyone who’s ever seen elite international U20 hockey can tell you how true that is. (Akil Thomas and Kaapo Kakko are nodding their heads right now.)
So in keeping with that theme, here are 7 Bold World Junior Championship predictions on the eve of the 2021 tournament in Edmonton.
1) Cole Caufield will break Markus Naslund’s single-tournament goals record
Cole Caufield, the top prospect of the Montreal Canadiens (15th overall in 2019), had a disappointing World Junior debut in 2020 with one goal and one assist. However, the all-time leader in USA Hockey NTDP goals (126) sure didn’t look rusty when he scored twice versus Finland in 0:25 during a 3-2 exhibition win in Edmonton on Tuesday.
Granted, Caufield also had four goals in a 7-1 pre-tournament romp over Germany last year before slowing down. But the nifty winger with the laser shot has an undeniable opportunity to make history here.
Why exactly should we believe that the University of Wisconsin star is ready to beat Swedish legend Markus Naslund’s 1993 record of 13 goals?
First, in 2019, Caufield tied Alexander Ovechkin’s U18 Worlds record of 14 goals, which had stood unchallenged for 17 years. Second, Caufield can turbocharge his confidence by filling the net in the U.S.’s second and third games against Austria, which is competing in its first World Juniors since 2010, and the Czech Republic, which hasn’t medaled since 2005’s bronze. Third, he’s hungry for redemption after never capturing gold at either the U18 or U20 level, and this is his last chance as a 19-year-old.
What if the U.S. falls short in the semi-finals? Based on recent history, that might boost Caufield’s chances even more. The Americans have won some big bronze-medal blowouts, topping the Swedes 8-3 in Helsinki (2016) and the Czechs 9-3 in Buffalo (2018).
2) No relegation this year will result in at least one awesome goalie-pulling scenario
Who doesn’t dream of growing up to play in a best-of-three relegation series? Just kidding. Fortunately for our World Junior teams, that fearsome format is off the table in 2021. And since teams can sincerely state this year that they have “nothing to lose,” they can pull out all the stops when making a last-ditch bid for a quarter-final berth.
We anticipate that two specific games could feature some radical coaching decisions in regard to pulling the goalie: Switzerland-Germany on 30 December and Czech-Republic-Austria on 31 December.
There’s a chance that all four of these teams will enter their final round-robin game with three losses apiece. And if that’s the case, if you’re losing in the third period, there’s a quarter-final berth on the line, and you know you can’t be sent down, why not just go for it?
In 2018, New York University professor Aaron Brown and hedge fund manager Clifford S. Asness collaborated on a study that showed hockey coaches are best-served to pull their goalies with 6:10 remaining if trailing by a goal or with 13:00 remaining if trailing by two goals.
So let’s say Switzerland is leading 3-2 with 6:10 left. Or the Czechs are up 3-1 with 13:00 left. We’d hope the German and Austrian coaches respectively heed the wisdom of this study. Nobody should be super-concerned about their goal differential in 2021 if they lose after allowing two or three empty-net goals. Also, even if you don’t want to listen to some egghead number-crunchers who never played the game, Patrick Roy and Mike Keenan will approve.
Ditto for Finnish national women’s team coach Pasi Mustonen. Trailing Canada 3-1 in the third period of the 2016 IIHF Women’s World Championship semi-final in Kamloops, Mustonen pulled starter Meeri Raisanen a jaw-dropping five times. (The Finns got one goal but allowed two empty-netters, finally falling 5-3.)
3) Canada will score the first “All-Dylan goal” in World Junior history
Imagine the following goal announcement: “Team Canada goal scored by number 22 Dylan Holloway. The assist to number 10 Dylan Cozens and to number 31 Dylan Garand. Time of the goal: Dylan time!”
It could happen for the defending champs.
Garand, an 18-year-old Kamloops Blazers goalie, hails from Victoria, and while he shares his jersey number with former Victoria Cougars star Grant Fuhr, he’s unlikely to ever match the NHL goalie assists record (14) set by Fuhr with the 1983-84 Edmonton Oilers. Yet with that said, Garand has recorded one assist in both of his Blazers seasons – putting him just one career WHL assist back of the five-time Stanley Cup champion.
Here, all it would take is a nice Garand head man pass to Cozens, who tied for third in tournament assists last year (seven), and a sweet snipe from Holloway, who has two goals in two games for the University of Wisconsin. (Or vice versa. We’re not picky.)
Naturally, in this scenario, any opposing goalie who stones the shooter has the absolute right to skate over and quote Bob Dylan’s 1966 song “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35”: “I would not feel so all alone/Everybody must get stoned.”
This would build on the glorious tradition of the three Jasons (Botterill, Podollan, Holland) on Canada’s 1996 World Junior gold-medal team and the six Ryans (Callahan, Kesler, Malone, Miller, Suter, Whitney) on the U.S.’s 2010 Olympic silver-medal team.
4) Austria will ban media questions related to The Sound of Music
In North America, watching The Sound of Music – a classic 1966 musical that won five Oscars – is a Christmas tradition. Conversely, a quick Google search reveals headlines ranging from “In Austria, The Sound of Music Is a Curiosity” (New York Times) to “Why Austrians Really Hate The Sound of Music” (Culture Trip).
It’s a tough topic to avoid this year with TSN airing a snack-food ad that includes Anna Kendrick singing “My Favorite Things.”
Why exactly should we believe that the University of Wisconsin star is ready to beat Swedish legend Markus Naslund’s 1993 record of 13 goals?
First, in 2019, Caufield tied Alexander Ovechkin’s U18 Worlds record of 14 goals, which had stood unchallenged for 17 years. Second, Caufield can turbocharge his confidence by filling the net in the U.S.’s second and third games against Austria, which is competing in its first World Juniors since 2010, and the Czech Republic, which hasn’t medaled since 2005’s bronze. Third, he’s hungry for redemption after never capturing gold at either the U18 or U20 level, and this is his last chance as a 19-year-old.
What if the U.S. falls short in the semi-finals? Based on recent history, that might boost Caufield’s chances even more. The Americans have won some big bronze-medal blowouts, topping the Swedes 8-3 in Helsinki (2016) and the Czechs 9-3 in Buffalo (2018).
2) No relegation this year will result in at least one awesome goalie-pulling scenario
Who doesn’t dream of growing up to play in a best-of-three relegation series? Just kidding. Fortunately for our World Junior teams, that fearsome format is off the table in 2021. And since teams can sincerely state this year that they have “nothing to lose,” they can pull out all the stops when making a last-ditch bid for a quarter-final berth.
We anticipate that two specific games could feature some radical coaching decisions in regard to pulling the goalie: Switzerland-Germany on 30 December and Czech-Republic-Austria on 31 December.
There’s a chance that all four of these teams will enter their final round-robin game with three losses apiece. And if that’s the case, if you’re losing in the third period, there’s a quarter-final berth on the line, and you know you can’t be sent down, why not just go for it?
In 2018, New York University professor Aaron Brown and hedge fund manager Clifford S. Asness collaborated on a study that showed hockey coaches are best-served to pull their goalies with 6:10 remaining if trailing by a goal or with 13:00 remaining if trailing by two goals.
So let’s say Switzerland is leading 3-2 with 6:10 left. Or the Czechs are up 3-1 with 13:00 left. We’d hope the German and Austrian coaches respectively heed the wisdom of this study. Nobody should be super-concerned about their goal differential in 2021 if they lose after allowing two or three empty-net goals. Also, even if you don’t want to listen to some egghead number-crunchers who never played the game, Patrick Roy and Mike Keenan will approve.
Ditto for Finnish national women’s team coach Pasi Mustonen. Trailing Canada 3-1 in the third period of the 2016 IIHF Women’s World Championship semi-final in Kamloops, Mustonen pulled starter Meeri Raisanen a jaw-dropping five times. (The Finns got one goal but allowed two empty-netters, finally falling 5-3.)
3) Canada will score the first “All-Dylan goal” in World Junior history
Imagine the following goal announcement: “Team Canada goal scored by number 22 Dylan Holloway. The assist to number 10 Dylan Cozens and to number 31 Dylan Garand. Time of the goal: Dylan time!”
It could happen for the defending champs.
Garand, an 18-year-old Kamloops Blazers goalie, hails from Victoria, and while he shares his jersey number with former Victoria Cougars star Grant Fuhr, he’s unlikely to ever match the NHL goalie assists record (14) set by Fuhr with the 1983-84 Edmonton Oilers. Yet with that said, Garand has recorded one assist in both of his Blazers seasons – putting him just one career WHL assist back of the five-time Stanley Cup champion.
Here, all it would take is a nice Garand head man pass to Cozens, who tied for third in tournament assists last year (seven), and a sweet snipe from Holloway, who has two goals in two games for the University of Wisconsin. (Or vice versa. We’re not picky.)
Naturally, in this scenario, any opposing goalie who stones the shooter has the absolute right to skate over and quote Bob Dylan’s 1966 song “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35”: “I would not feel so all alone/Everybody must get stoned.”
This would build on the glorious tradition of the three Jasons (Botterill, Podollan, Holland) on Canada’s 1996 World Junior gold-medal team and the six Ryans (Callahan, Kesler, Malone, Miller, Suter, Whitney) on the U.S.’s 2010 Olympic silver-medal team.
4) Austria will ban media questions related to The Sound of Music
In North America, watching The Sound of Music – a classic 1966 musical that won five Oscars – is a Christmas tradition. Conversely, a quick Google search reveals headlines ranging from “In Austria, The Sound of Music Is a Curiosity” (New York Times) to “Why Austrians Really Hate The Sound of Music” (Culture Trip).
It’s a tough topic to avoid this year with TSN airing a snack-food ad that includes Anna Kendrick singing “My Favorite Things.”
Lazy North American journalists seeking easy headlines may pepper Austrian coach Roger Bader and his boys with dubious gems like “Do you watch Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer before every big game?” or “Does ‘Sixteen Going On Seventeen’ have any place in a tournament geared for 19-year-olds?’” We predict such Zoom questions will be uniformly muted before these World Juniors end.
This kind of ban isn’t unprecedented. At the 2007 Women’s Worlds in Winnipeg, Kazakhstan’s national team announced they would not answer questions about the first Borat movie due to comedian Sacha Barron Cohen’s disrespectful and inaccurate portrayal of their country.
However, we’ll just quickly note that something good for the Austrians, as they climb every mountain, is that with no relegation, they won’t have to say: “So long, farewell.”
5) A junior will find something an NHLer forgot during the NHL playoff bubble
Let’s be clear: the JW Marriott Edmonton promises “enhanced cleaning protocols and housekeeping services” to meet today’s challenges. But that doesn’t mean that Victor Hedman couldn’t have accidentally tucked an autographed hockey card between pages 32 and 33 of an in-room copy of Where Edmonton Magazine.
Rogers Place, likewise, is being rigorously sanitized. But what if a hockey sock worn by Corey Perry got lost in a dryer, only to magically re-emerge, smelling only of the Triple Gold Club, right before our quarter-finals?
You get the idea. There must be archaeological artifacts from August and September lurking somewhere in the ICE District. We’re not saying that whatever’s found will be the sacred talisman that carries the World Junior player’s team to victory. But that’d be cool.
6) Kasperi Kapanen’s record for the fastest gold-medal overtime goal will be broken
Eight of the last 11 World Junior gold medal games have been decided by one goal (2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020), and five required extra time. So you can bet this year’s final will be tight as well.
In 2016, Kasperi Kapanen set the record for the quickest gold-medal overtime winner in tournament history. He beat Russian goalie Alexander Georgiev with a wraparound at 1:33, giving the host Finns an electrifying 4-3 victory in Helsinki.
This kind of ban isn’t unprecedented. At the 2007 Women’s Worlds in Winnipeg, Kazakhstan’s national team announced they would not answer questions about the first Borat movie due to comedian Sacha Barron Cohen’s disrespectful and inaccurate portrayal of their country.
However, we’ll just quickly note that something good for the Austrians, as they climb every mountain, is that with no relegation, they won’t have to say: “So long, farewell.”
5) A junior will find something an NHLer forgot during the NHL playoff bubble
Let’s be clear: the JW Marriott Edmonton promises “enhanced cleaning protocols and housekeeping services” to meet today’s challenges. But that doesn’t mean that Victor Hedman couldn’t have accidentally tucked an autographed hockey card between pages 32 and 33 of an in-room copy of Where Edmonton Magazine.
Rogers Place, likewise, is being rigorously sanitized. But what if a hockey sock worn by Corey Perry got lost in a dryer, only to magically re-emerge, smelling only of the Triple Gold Club, right before our quarter-finals?
You get the idea. There must be archaeological artifacts from August and September lurking somewhere in the ICE District. We’re not saying that whatever’s found will be the sacred talisman that carries the World Junior player’s team to victory. But that’d be cool.
6) Kasperi Kapanen’s record for the fastest gold-medal overtime goal will be broken
Eight of the last 11 World Junior gold medal games have been decided by one goal (2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020), and five required extra time. So you can bet this year’s final will be tight as well.
In 2016, Kasperi Kapanen set the record for the quickest gold-medal overtime winner in tournament history. He beat Russian goalie Alexander Georgiev with a wraparound at 1:33, giving the host Finns an electrifying 4-3 victory in Helsinki.
However, that came 4-on-4. No World Junior gold-medal OT has ever been played under the current 3-on-3 format. It says here that we’ll go to sudden-death on 5 January, and the combination of teenage nerves, adrenaline, and all that extra space will give us a winner before you can blink.
7) It’s time for a surprise bronze medalist
Undoubtedly, our 2021 gold-medal team will emerge from the usual “Big Five” group of Canada, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. However, during one of the strangest stretches in human history, it just feels fitting for a dark horse to snag the bronze medal.
By the most liberal definition, this has only happened three times in the past 44 World Juniors with Switzerland (1998) and Slovakia (1999 and 2015). And plenty of observers would argue that the ‘99 Slovaks – featuring Marian Gaborik, Ladislav Nagy, and Branko Radivojevic – weren’t underdogs.
Anyway, Central Europe, it’s all on you now. Somebody step up! Surprise us! Go get that third-place goodness!
7) It’s time for a surprise bronze medalist
Undoubtedly, our 2021 gold-medal team will emerge from the usual “Big Five” group of Canada, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. However, during one of the strangest stretches in human history, it just feels fitting for a dark horse to snag the bronze medal.
By the most liberal definition, this has only happened three times in the past 44 World Juniors with Switzerland (1998) and Slovakia (1999 and 2015). And plenty of observers would argue that the ‘99 Slovaks – featuring Marian Gaborik, Ladislav Nagy, and Branko Radivojevic – weren’t underdogs.
Anyway, Central Europe, it’s all on you now. Somebody step up! Surprise us! Go get that third-place goodness!