Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff weighs into the Jesper Wallstedt-vs-Sebastian Cossa debate by suggesting that success or failure at the World Junior Championship is simply a poor barometer of future NHL success or NHL failure:
As much as everyone likes to see their team’s prospects shining when on the game’s biggest stages, the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t always mean greatness is blooming. Judging a goaltender’s quality off of a world junior performance is akin to writing off a 19-year-old netminder because they didn’t step to the fore.
Looking back at the netminders who were earning golden moments at the World Juniors, there isn’t a track record of NHL success on most resumes. For every Juuse Saros (Finland, 2014), John Gibson (USA, 2013) and Carey Price (Canada, 2007), there are countless guys like Dmitri Shikin, Jeff Glass, Tomas Duba and Tyler Parsons.
In 2006, after Justin Pogge was leading Canada to gold, the Toronto Maple Leafs were certain they’d found their goalie of the future. So certain, in fact, they traded the rights to the guy who was No. 3 in the goalie stats at the World Junior tourney. Fellow by the name of Tuukka Rask. Maybe you’ve heard of him.
Carter Hart (2018) and Kaapo Kahkonen (2016) are gold-medal winners from whom the jury remains out regarding long-term NHL success. Certainly, that ship has set sail for journeymen puckstoppers Zach Fucale (2015) and Dustin Tokarski (2009).
