What is The Daily Clutter? 

It’s pretty simple. The Clutter is us but it’s also the news about Minnesota hockey & hockey in general and we want to Bring The Clutter to you, our fans or The ClutterPuckers, daily!

Maybe we’ll sprinkle in some fun things, too.

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Today is all about the…

2025 IIHF World Junior Championships!

It’s the holidays, the greatest time of the year in our opinion, and hopefully yours, as well. One of the biggest reasons we believe it’s the greatest time of the year is the annual tradition of the IIHF U20 World Junior Championships. The 10 best hockey countries in the world bring together their best players in the quest to be the best in the world and win GOLD!!! 

I love GOLLLLDDDD!!!

“I love gold.
The look of it, the taste of it, the smell of it, the texture. 
I love gold so much that I even lost my genitalia in an unfortunate schmelting accident… hence the name… 
Goldmember.

(Solid Golllddd)”

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The Schedule

Game Notes

The annual tournament started with 4 games yesterday, December 26th, as you can see from the schedule above and from that amazing cover we made. Thank You! Thank You! 

To the International Clutter!!!* 
(*🤔… that has a nice ring to it!)

Slovakia vs Sweden – Group B – Game 1

• Slovakia got on the scoreboard first by winning the faceoff in the offensive zone to start 4-on-4 play for 17 seconds. Sweden played it like they were killing a penalty so Slovakia F Dalibor Dvorsky received a pass at the top of the right faceoff circle and the Swedish defenseman had to rotate to him but didn’t do enough to block the shot. Sweden G Melker Thelin was also screened on the play by the forward who was left there by the defenseman.
• Sweden wasn’t too worried about being down a goal as they
• Rattled 
  • Sweden won a puck battle and a broken stick allowed them to keep the puck in the zone and Rasmus Bergqvist fired a shot that beat Slovakian G Samuel Urban to the glove side just above his left pad 3:41 into the 2nd period.
• Off
  • Sweden worked a power play to perfection as they gave their captain, D Axel Sandin Pellikka, back-t0-back one-timers from the left face-off dot and he blasted the second one home to take a 2-1 lead. It was a knuckle puck too.
• Five 
  • D Axel Sandin Pellikka struck again when he went bar down over the left shoulder of the Slovakia goalie. 3-1 Sweden.
    • Slovakia was making it easy for Sweden by chasing & reacting to the puck instead of reading the play and reacting to those reads.
• Straight
  • Sweden D Axel Sandin Pellikka completed the natural hat trick when he got the puck off a face-off win and took a shot from the middle of the blue line that got through three Slovak players and beat the goalie mid-blocker. The goalie may have been screened. One of those three players needs to block that shot.
    • Was there a miscommunication on who was supposed to cover Pellikka? The defenseman who was on the half-wall at the face-off went back to his defensive position in front of the net even though he was the closest defender to the player who had the puck. There was a mess of players to get through for the other two players.
      • You’d think teams would communicate and switch coverage to play better defense but they sure didn’t do that here.
• Goals
  • 88 seconds later, the Swedish lead went to 5-1 when the Slovakian forecheck got a little too aggressive with no player high so Sweden took advantage of a 4-on-2 odd-man rush to get a point-blank shot from F Linus Eriksson and he 
• to take control of the game.
• Slovakia scored a late power-play goal to make it a 5-2 Final.

Germany vs USA – Group A – Game 1

From the Team USA Game Notes: The U.S. and Germany will meet for the 15th time today in the World Juniors. The U.S. has a 13-0-1-0-0 (W-OTW-OTL-L-T) advantage in the series. The teams last met in the quarterfinals of the 2023 World Juniors in Moncton, with Team USA earning an 11-1 victory on Jan. 2, 2023. A game-by-game look at the all-time series is below.

YEAR ROUND RESULT
2023 Quarterfinals W, 11-1
2022 Preliminary W, 5-1
2020 Preliminary W, 6-3
2015 Preliminary W, 6-0
2014 Preliminary W, 8-0
2013 Preliminary W, 8-0
2011 Preliminary W, 4-0
2009 Preliminary W, 8-2
2007 Preliminary OTL, 1-2
1997 Preliminary W, 8-0
1995 Round-Robin W, 5-3
1994 Round-Robin W, 7-2
1993 Round-Robin W, 4-3
1992 Round-Robin W, 6-2

• Would rather start the preliminary round with more or less competitive matchups? Team USA started vs Germany who they’ve only lost to once over 14 games.
  • Would you rather have a game or two to build chemistry and consistency with your team or face a great team immediately? The teams do play pre-tournament games, so maybe chemistry and consistency aren’t much of a problem, but it’d still be nice to get a real game or two in before facing the best teams in the tourney.
• Team USA beat Germany 10-4, but they were ahead 3-0. Germany got it back to 3-2, so USA responded by increasing their lead to 5 goals at 7-2. Germany scored again, so USA responded again by making it 9-3. Germany made it 9-4, and USA scored to make the final 10-4.
• Most of the goals against Germany were the result of a lot of puck-watching and not reading the play. Sometimes, Germany outnumbered the US players, but they were still chasing the puck while Team USA got open for scoring chances they would bury.
• The goals against the US were also due to some puck-watching, bad defense or turnovers. It’s good they faced some adversity and responded to it well. That should serve them well in the next game against Latvia on Saturday.

Czechia vs Switzerland – Group B – Game 2 – Condensed Game

• Czechia won 5-1 with Switzerland’s goal coming with 2:29 left in regulation.

Finland vs Canada – Group A – Game 2 – Condensed Game

• Canada beat Finland 4-0 but it was only 2-0 with 5 minutes remaining in regulation then Canada scored a power-play goal followed by an empty-net goal.

Red Wings fire head coach Derek Lalonde, Todd McLellan takes over 

“The move the day after Christmas comes with the Red Wings on a three-game skid and having lost nine of their past 12. They’ve lost 21 of their first 34 games this season and are above only the lowly Buffalo Sabres in the Eastern Conference.”

Todd McLellan is somewhat well-known to Minnesota Wild fans having coached their minor-league team to a 197-143-31-31 (W-L-T-OTL) from 2000 to 2005 including winning the Calder Cup with the Houston Aeros in 2003. He was hired by the Detroit Red Wings in 2005 to be an assistant coach on Mike Babcock’s staff. He helped them win the 2008 Stanley Cup and then was hired to be the head coach of the San Jose Sharks.

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And… last but certainly not least… we hope you had a Great Christmas and continue to have a Happy Holiday season that is filled with Clutter!!!

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