Flames at 2019 World Juniors: two quarterfinal exits

The good news is that all four Calgary Flames prospects at the 2019 World Junior Championship qualified for the quarterfinals. The bad news is that all of them were eliminated in said quarterfinals, as Sweden and Slovakia bowed out during Wednesday’s games.

You may have noticed no World Junior update on New Year’s Eve. That was because a ton of Swedish players were missing for their game against Kazakhstan due to an illness that swept through the team. One of the absent players was Flames prospect Filip Sveningsson.

Well, everyone was back against Switzerland, but the Swiss were just flat-out better than Sweden. They scored twice and hung on for the win. Sveningsson played just 6:22, as the Swedes shortened their bench to try to get back in this one.

Russia’s really good. Slovakia’s only win in the round robin came against Kazakhstan. So this result probably isn’t unexpected. The Russians scored three goals in a span of two and a half minutes to take control of this game in the first period.

Credit where it’s due, though: the Slovaks battled back late when the game was well out of hand, so they weren’t prepared to just roll over and die to give Russia an easy win.

Flames prospect Milos Roman had a goal, Martin Pospisil had an assist, and Adam Ruzicka was held off the scoresheet.