Group A Preliminary Games
10:15 AM ET: Russia vs France
The defending Olympic champions will now set their sights on a World Championship. Many players from the Olympic team will be taking part in this tournament as well, including Pavel Datsyuk and former Canadiens defenceman Nikita Nesterov. They will be joined by several NHL players including Pavel Buchnevich, Nikita Zaitsev, and Artem Anisimov. France will be looking to stay in the top division after co-hosting the event last year. Edmonton Oilers defenceman Yohann Auvitu will be making his ninth World Championships appearance. He is the only current NHL player on the team.
The game will be shown on TSN 5 in Canada.
2:15 PM ET: Sweden vs Belarus
Jacob de la Rose and Team Sweden will get their tournament started against Belarus. Even without their best players, Sweden’s defence is stacked with players like Oliver Ekman-Larsson, John Klingberg, and Hampus Lindholm. Up front, they are very young. Mikael Backlund is their oldest player at 29 and they have two 19-year-olds in Lias Andersson and Elias Pettersson. For Belarus, they have no current NHL players on their roster but they do have 19-year-old Maxim Sushko, a fourth-round pick by the Philadelphia Flyers who had a point-per-game in the OHL.
The game will be shown on TSN 1 and RDS in Canada and NHL Network in the USA.
Group B Preliminary Games
10:15 AM ET: Canada vs United States
All eyes will be on Connor McDavid, as he leads Canada as captain for the tournament. The Canadians are going with a younger team in this tournament as their average age is only 23.74 years old, which is the lowest in the tournament. Darcy Kuemper and Curtis McElhinney will likely lead the way in goal for Canada. For Team USA, a lot of eyes will be on defenceman Quinn Hughes. Hughes is eligible for this year’s NHL Draft and his performance may effect where he will go in the draft. Alex DeBrincat, Johnny Gaudreau, and Dylan Larkin will lead the youth movement on offence for the Americans.
The game will be on TSN 1/3/4 and RDS in Canada and NHL Network in the US.
2:15 PM ET: Denmark vs Germany
The host Danes get underway against Germany. Denmark is led by their NHLers goaltender Fredrik Andersen and forwards Oliver Bjorkstrand and Frans Nielsen. Denmark has become the darlings of IIHF tournaments lately, and you know they will be motivated to host a top-level tournament. Germany has NHLers Dennis Seidenberg and Korbinian Holzer to lead them on defence and Leon Draisaitl and Canadiens prospect Markus Eisenschmid up front.
The game will be on TSN 3/4 in Canada.
All games shown on TSN will be streamed on TSN Go in Canada, but it requires a subscription to TSN. NHL Network in the US will be showing games as well, but listings did not confirm which games will be shown.
