The 2022 IIHF World Hockey Championship is set to get underway on Friday, May 13th and will wrap up on Sunday, May 29th with the bronze and gold medal games. The tournament is set to be held in Tampere and Helsinki, Finland.
Last year’s tournament provided some highly entertaining hockey. Canada, who lost their first three group stage games, went on to finish fourth in their group and won the gold medal by defeating Finland in the final. In terms of disappointments from last year’s tournament, Sweden didn’t even make it out of the group stage, finishing with a 3-0-1-3 record, good for ten points.
Let’s take a look at the groups for this year’s tournament.
Group A: Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia, Denmark, Kazakhstan, France, Italy.
Group B: Finland, United States, Czechia, Sweden, Latvia, Norway, Great Britain, Austria.
As you may notice, Russia and Belarus are absent from this year’s tournament. This is because the International Ice Hockey Federation has suspended both nations indefinitely due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Belarus aiding with the invasion.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also led to a venue change for the tournament. One of the venues, Helsinki Halli, was removed because it is owned by Russian oligarchs. Helsinki Ice Hall will serve as its replacement and can hold up to 8,200 spectators. The big venue will be in Tampere, with the newly-opened Nokia Arena set to hold all of Group B’s games as well as the majority of the playoff round. It can hold up to 13, 455 fans.
Now that we’ve gone through some info about the tournament, let’s take a look at my game-by-game predictions for the preliminary round and the medal round.
Group A – Helsinki
- May 13th – France (2) vs Slovakia (5)
- May 13th – Germany (2) vs Canada (6)
- May 14th – Denmark (3) vs Kazakhstan (2) OT
- May 14th – Switzerland (8) vs Italy (1)
- May 14th – Slovakia (2) vs Germany (4)
- May 15th – Italy (0) vs Canada (11)
- May 15th – France (3) vs Kazakhstan (1)
- May 15th – Denmark (2) vs Switzerland (3)
- May 16th – Slovakia (1) vs Canada (4)
- May 16th – France (0) vs Germany (5)
- May 17th – Italy (1) vs Denmark (3)
- May 17th – Switzerland (3) vs Kazakhstan (2) OT
- May 18th – France (3) vs Italy (1)
- May 18th – Switzerland (2) vs Slovakia (5)
- May 19th – Germany (4) vs Denmark (2)
- May 19th – Canada (8) vs Kazakhstan (1)
- May 20th – Germany (6) vs Italy (0)
- May 20th – Kazakhstan (1) vs Slovakia (5)
- May 21st – Denmark (2) vs France (1) OT
- May 21st – Canada (3) vs Switzerland (1)
- May 21st – Italy (0) vs Slovakia (4)
- May 22nd – Kazakhstan (1) vs Germany (5)
- May 22nd – Switzerland (4) vs France (1)
- May 23rd – Kazakhstan (3) vs Italy (1)
- May 23rd – Canada (5) vs Denmark (2)
- May 24th – Germany (5) vs Switzerland (3)
- May 24th – Slovakia (4) vs Denmark (2)
- May 24th – Canada (6) vs France (0)
Group B – Tampere
- May 13th – United States (4) vs Latvia (1)
- May 13th – Finland (5) vs Norway (2)
- May 14th – Sweden (8) vs Austria (1)
- May 14th – Czechia (5) vs Great Britain (1)
- May 14th – Latvia (1) vs Finland (4)
- May 15th – Norway (3) vs Great Britain (2) OT
- May 15th – Austria (1) vs United States (6)
- May 15th – Czechia (2) vs Sweden (5)
- May 16th – Latvia (2) vs Norway (4)
- May 16th – Finland (4) vs United States (3) OT
- May 17th – Czechia (5) vs Austria (1)
- May 17th – Sweden (10) vs Great Britain (1)
- May 18th – Norway (4) vs Austria (2)
- May 18th – Finland (2) vs Sweden (5)
- May 19th – Great Britain (0) vs United States (5)
- May 19th – Czechia (3) vs Latvia (0)
- May 20th – Great Britain (1) vs Finland (6)
- May 20th – Latvia (4) vs Austria (1)
- May 21st – United States (3) vs Sweden (4) OT
- May 21st – Austria (0) vs Finland (5)
- May 21st – Norway (2) vs Czechia (6)
- May 22nd – Great Britain (1) vs Latvia (2) SO
- May 22nd – Sweden (6) vs Norway (1)
- May 23rd – United States (3) vs Czechia (1)
- May 23rd – Austria (1) vs Great Britain (3)
- May 24th – Sweden (5) vs Latvia (0)
- May 24th – United States (4) vs Norway (1)
- May 24th – Finland (3) vs Czechia (2) OT
Standings
Note: 3 points for a regulation win, 2 points for a OT/SO win, 1 point for an OT/SO loss, and 0 points for a regulation loss.
Top four in each group advance to the playoff round. The bottom team in each group get relegated to Division 1A for the 2023 tournament with Slovenia and Hungary coming up to replace them.
Group A
| Position | Team | GP | W | OTW | OTL | L | PTS | GF | GA | +/- |
| 1st | Canada | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 43 | 7 | +36 |
| 2nd | Germany | 7 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 18 | 31 | 14 | +17 |
| 3rd | Slovakia | 7 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 15 | 26 | 15 | +11 |
| 4th | Switzerland | 7 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 11 | 24 | 19 | +5 |
| 5th | Denmark | 7 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 16 | 20 | -4 |
| 6th | France | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 10 | 24 | -14 |
| 7th | Kazakhstan | 7 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 28 | -17 |
| 8th | Italy | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 38 | -34 |
Group B
| Position | Team | GP | W | OTW | OTL | L | PTS | GF | GA | +/- |
| 1st | Sweden | 7 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 43 | 10 | +33 |
| 2nd | United States | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 17 | 28 | 12 | +16 |
| 3rd | Finland | 7 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 16 | 29 | 14 | +15 |
| 4th | Czechia | 7 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 13 | 24 | 15 | +9 |
| 5th | Norway | 7 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 17 | 27 | -10 |
| 6th | Latvia | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 25 | -18 |
| 7th | Great Britain | 7 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 32 | -23 |
| 8th | Austria | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 35 | -28 |
Playoff Round
Quarter-Finals
- May 26th – (A1) Canada (4) vs (B4) Czechia (1)
- May 26th – (B1) Sweden (5) vs (A4) Switzerland (2)
- May 26th – (A2) Germany (3) vs (B3) Finland (2) OT
- May 26th – (B2) United States (2) vs (A3) Slovakia (4)
Semi-Finals
*Note: Following the Quarter-Finals, the teams will be reseeded for the Semi-Finals based on their group stage standings.
- May 28th – Canada (5) vs Slovakia (2)
- May 28th – Sweden (4) vs Germany (3) OT
Bronze Medal Game
- May 29th – Germany (4) vs Slovakia (2)
Gold Medal Game
- May 29th – Canada (3) vs Sweden (1)
Awards
- Best Goalie: Chris Driedger (Canada)
- Best Defenceman: Moritz Seider (Germany)
- Best Forward: Juraj Slafkovsky (Slovakia)
- MVP: Mat Barzal (Canada)
Media All-Star Team
- Goalie: Chris Driedger (Canada)
- Defence: Moritz Seider (Germany) – Rasmus Dahlin (Sweden)
- Forward: Juraj Slafkovsky (Slovakia) – Mat Barzal (Canada) – Lucas Wallmark (Sweden)
Thank you to everyone who has been reading, I appreciate it! The World Championships begin in only a couple days and I have a ‘Players to Watch’ article coming out tomorrow, followed by Daily Recaps every day of the tournament! Enjoy.
-Cooper.