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Michael DiPietro and Kole Lind stymie Elias Pettersson at World Junior Summer Showcase

While some might question the utility of the World Junior Summer Showcase for evaluating prospective players, it is nice to have a little dose of hockey in the middle of summer. It’s particularly nice to get a longer look at Canucks prospects.
Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
Michael DiPietro for Team Canada
Michael DiPietro for Team Canada

While some might question the utility of the World Junior Summer Showcase for evaluating prospective players, it is nice to have a little dose of hockey in the middle of summer. It’s particularly nice to get a longer look at Canucks prospects.

On Friday, goaltender Michael DiPietro and winger Kole Lind suited up for Team Canada against Elias Pettersson and Sweden. A strong performance from the Canadian juniors led to a 7-4 win, as Sweden played a little too loose, making a number of sloppy mistakes.

DiPietro started the game for Canada and made 14 saves on 16 shots through the first half of the game before being replaced by Carter Hart. He wasn’t called upon to make any outstanding saves, but he was positionally sound and kept himself square to the shooter, presenting minimal holes for Swedish shooters to exploit.

 

 

That in itself might be the most encouraging takeaway for Canucks fans, as no one questions DiPietro’s athleticism and compete level, but his foundational positioning has been called into question. The only two goals that beat him were clearly not his fault: one was a point shot past multiple screens that went just under the bar that he never had a chance to see, while the other came off a perfect power play pass.

DiPietro will face some stiff competition to make the team — Carter Wells has looked particularly good in his appearances at this tournament — but he has certainly given Hockey Canada no reason to discount him.

Kole Lind had a quiet game to go with a quiet tournament. The right winger was a late addition to Team Canada and saw limited ice time in this game as his team regularly switched up their lines.

Lind got a bit of use on the penalty kill as well, where he was regrettably victimized for one of Sweden’s goals.

 

 

You can’t see Lind in that gif and that’s the problem. He got caught out of position and couldn’t close down on Erik Brannstrom and take away his shooting or passing lanes. That left him wide open to set up Lias Andersson at the side of the net.

Lind had a similar gaffe in defensive coverage earlier in the game at even-strength, following the puck carrier, who wasn’t his man, instead of staying with his check at the point. That led to a good scoring chance. To Lind’s credit, he did get to the rebound first and clear it away.

Overall, it’s been a tough tournament for Lind, who hasn’t created much offensively, though he hasn’t had much opportunity to do so. He’s looked decent in puck battles along the boards and made some solid passes, but he hasn’t separated himself from his peers in a way that would make Hockey Canada sit up and take notice.

Finally, there’s Pettersson, who saw some time at centre in this game for the first time in the tournament, in between Dallas Stars prospect Fredrick Karlstrom and New Jersey Devils prospect Jesper Bratt. As a result, he seemed to be a bit more involved overall, particularly defensively, where he played lower in the zone and used his excellent defensive awareness to get in shooting lanes, making a couple key shot blocks.

There were a couple times, in fact, where he ended up as the last man back, and went down to the ice to take away shooting and passing lanes to give his goaltender the best opportunity to make a save.

While Pettersson was on the ice for one goal against, it came off a turnover by Bratt, who took the puck right off Pettersson’s stick and gave it away.

Offensively, Pettersson came up short, though not for lack of effort. He had three shots on goal, but he couldn't beat DiPietro or Hart. Two of those shots were hard one-timers on the power play, where he set up as the quarterback on the right boards. He distributed the puck well from that position, but Sweden’s execution as a whole seemed off.

When Pettersson did have a chance on a 2-on-1, it was cut short by a high-stick to the face from Logan Stanley. And when his breakout pass led to a goal by Karlstrom, he wasn’t credited with an assist.

 

 

Overall, it was a solid, if unspectacular performance by Pettersson. You would certainly hope for a little more from him, but he certainly isn’t playing poorly. He even did well holding off defenders with his body positioning and you can tell that with a little more strength and size, he’ll be tough to handle with his stickhandling and skating.

The most encouraging sign might have come from the commentary rather than his play on the ice. Gord Miller said at one point, “Talking to [Sweden head coach] Tomas Montén yesterday, asking who the most skilled player on his team might be, without hesitation he said Pettersson.”