2016 NHL Draft: World Juniors – Day 2

HELSINKI, FINLAND – DECEMBER 27: Denmark’s Mathias From #17 battles for the puck with Switzerland’s Jonas Siegenthaler #25 behind Joren Van Pottelberghe #30 to score Team Denmark’s first goal of the game during preliminary round action at the 2016 IIHF World Junior Championship. (Photo by Matt Zambonin/HHOF-IIHF Images)

2016 NHL Draft: World Juniors – Day Two

Throughout the 2016 World Juniors Championship, I will be tracking all players that are eligible for the 2016 NHL Draft for the first time in June, playing in the tournament. The preliminaries began on December 26th and the gold medal game is on January 5th.

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The second day of the 2016 World Junior Championship was a rather quite one as only two games took place. The two games on the schedule were match-ups between teams likely to face regulation. The early morning matchup featured Slovakia and Belarus and the afternoon match-up had Switzerland against Denmark.

Belarus 2 vs Slovakia 4

Slovakia had the only 2016 NHL Draft eligible player playing in this game. Forward Filip Lestan came into the game having played 12 games in Sweden this season. He has scored 2 goals and accumulated 60 penalty minutes.

Lestan was a factor in this game. He scored Slovakia’s game-tying goal at 2-2 in the second period. Including the goal, Lestan played a good game. He worked his way into some third line minutes and chose his battles well.

Lestan had an injury scare in the early third period after he took a hard into the boards, but turned out to be okay when he joined his teammates on the ice shortly after the incident.

Denmark 2 vs Switzerland 1

Switzerland was without three players in their day 2 game against the Danes. One of those players was draft prospect Calvin Thurkauf, who was assessed a 1 game suspension for a hit to the head of LA Kings prospect Adrian Kempe.

Denmark had three 2016 NHL Draft prospects playing in the game. Mathias From, Nikolaj Krag, and Jeppe Korsgaard are all forwards and all three played very well, especially From and Krag.

Switzerland started the scoring in the first off of a Noah Rod deflection and then they disappeared from the game faster as the game went on. Denmark controlled the pace of the game from the start of the second period, onward.

The first line of Mathias From, Nikolaj Krag, and Alexander True played exceptionally well. Alexander True showed off his speed and power by cutting through the Swiss defenders like they were Swiss cheese.

Korsgaard had his chances here and there and did nothing to really disappoint. He came up with a very good chance when he made some moves around defenders to the outside, attempted to score a wraparound goal, but was foiled by defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler.

Alexander True scored the game-winning goal for Denmark. It was a sloppy play that led to him punching a loose puck in the net, but it is what one can only imagine as good fortune for the true skill he showed elsewhere.

Next: 2016 NHL Draft: World Juniors - Day Two

Most teams are back in action in day 3 of preliminaries. USA and Canada are included in that list as the former will play Sweden and the latter will play Denmark. Slovakia faces off with the Czech Republic and Russia matches up with Finland.

On another note, some corrections were made regarding stats of previous games that would influence the 2016 NHL Draft table. Those were included in the updated table, which can be seen here:

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