Rosters for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey were announced earlier today. The tournament will take place in Toronto at the Air Canada Centre as Canada being selected as the host country. The eight teams involved revealed a preliminary roster of 16 players, each that will be representing their country in September. The eight teams that will make up this tournament include Team USA, Team Canada, Team Sweden, Team Finland, Team Russia, Team Czech Republic, Team Europe, and Team North America. Team Europe will encompass all the players in Europe whose countries are not represented by the aforementioned teams. Team North America will consist of players from North America all under the age of 23. Check out which players are on their countries’ rosters here. Unlike the annual IIHF World Championship, however, this tournament plays by the NHL’s rules. This is the first World Cup of Hockey to take place since 2004..

Team Finland has built their rosters from the net up, gathering star goalies and defensemen in the league. Both Tuukka Rask of the Bruins and Pekka Rinne of the Predators are amazing goalies, which will help the team strive in lieu of none of their forwards having more than 20 goal this season.

Team Russia, on the other hand, is chock full of goal scorers namely Alex Ovechkin of the Capitals, Pavel Datsyuk of the Red Wings and Evgeni Malkin of the Penguins. They even have the rookie leading with the most points this season, Chicago Blackhawks’ Artemi Panarin, on the roster.

Team Czech Republic boosts a roster where most of the team is under 30 years old. The youngest, 19 year old David Pasternak, plays for the Boston Bruins. Czech coach Josef Jandac believes that the young guys have flexibility that will help the team succeed.

Team Sweden is not without their fair amount of big names. Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers will be goalie for Sweden, something the star goalie is no stranger to. Lundqvist has led the Swedish national team to the goal medal in the 2006 Olympics as well as the silver medal in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. Sweden’s team has a good balance of defensive and offensive stars with players like Erik Karlsson, Gabriel Landeskog, Daniel & Henrik Sedin, and Filip Forsberg. Sweden’s puck possession and Henrik Lundqvist in net is an equation that will aid Sweden in the tournament.

Team Canada brought back a lot of the players they used for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, where they won the gold medal. The chemistry that these teammates already have together can only help Team Canada with the tournament.

Similar to Team Canada, Team USA brought back a lot of its Olympic roster from 2014. Although this team did not fair well in the Olympics, not even placing, there might be a good amount of chemistry between the players left over from Sochi. If they can rally together and use that loss as motivation, they may have the opportunity to change the outcome this time around.

Team North America has, as intended, a bunch of young guys including Connor McDavid of the Oilers, Jack Eichel of the Sabres, and Dylan Larkin of the Red Wings. Youth is the biggest asset they can bring to the competition as they definitely do not have as much experience as a whole like the teams they will be playing against.

Team Europe, as it is a collection of European players not from the big six countries, will have a tougher time. They will not have the chemistry nor experience playing together as the other national teams will have. This team boasts a lot of Slovakian and Danish players like Zdeno Chara, as well as other Europeans such as Roman Josi who is Swiss, Mats Zuccarello who is Norwegian, and Thomas Vanek who is Austrian.

Many of the NHL players that have the chance to represent their countries in the World Cup of Hockey state that it is an honor to do so. Because of that sentiment, it will be exciting to see them be able to play the game they love and represent the country from which they learned to love and play the game.

As a teaser to the rosters being announced, the NHL twitter account has been showing bits of the national team jerseys that are going to be worn. Most of these jerseys are extremely similar to the National Team jerseys worn at the Olympics and the IIHF Championship

The World Cup of Hockey will take place in September of 2016 and even though there is a lot of hockey left this season, it is certain to be an event to look forward to.

 

 

 

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