St. Louis had franchise-record nine players participate, five medal at 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship
For the second straight year, Doug Armstrong came to appreciate the efforts of St. Louis Blues prospects at the IIHF World Junior Championship.
After setting a franchise record with seven in Sweden in 2024, the Blues topped it again with nine at this year’s tournament in Ottawa, and the results were fruitful. Here are some of the highlights from this year’s prospects at the tournament, including Dalibor Dvorsky, who was named an AHL All-Star for Springfield on Wednesday:
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A lot of it sounds promising, right? Well, yes, and no. Yes in regards to the production and notoriety is promising, but it’s no until these players take the good out of it and continue each one’s growth.
“Picks are great, but when they put a name to them, they’re better,” Armstrong said. “So we’ve been fortunate, or unfortunate depending on how you want to look at it, to have acquired a lot of picks trading veteran players over the last couple years. Credit goes exclusively to our amateur staff for finding the right players and then they share the credit with our development staff on spending time in making these young players better. But when you get to a tournament like this, you want your fan base to … when you project that you’re trying to do something and this tournament puts stock in that we do have a plan and it’s in place. Just because they’re not in St. Louis right in front of them doesn’t mean that there’s not real good growth in our organization and I think to lead that tournament two years in a row in total points for an NHL organization is great for us. To see the representation this year knowing we’re going to have solid representation again next year with players, it’s positive.
“We’re looking forward to getting these guys to the NHL and to pro as quick as possible. Our goal is with the [Philip] Brobergs and the [Dylan] Holloways and the [Jake] Neighbours, we have a bunch of guys we want to be able to see grow together, and I think these guys that played in that tournament two, three, four years ago are looking at these guys and are they see a future that includes them with this next wave of players also, which is exciting.”
One player Armstrong had to be excited for is defenseman Adam Jiricek, a first-round pick (No. 16) in the 2024 NHL Draft that was injured early in the tournament last year with a collision with fellow Blues prospect Juraj Pekarcik (2023, third round) and injuring his right knee.
Jiricek, who had five assists in seven games, including the game-winner on Adam Jecho’s goal in the final minute that eliminated Canada in the quarterfinal, went through a lot of physical strain this past year to get back to playing regularly again.
After a solid tournament showing, he will continue his season at Brentford of the Ontario Hockey League.
“He was getting stronger and stronger as the tournament was (going) along,” Armstrong said. “He hasn’t played a lot quite honestly in a year. One of the things that Alex Steen and I talked about, and he pointed it out, was his excitement at both ends of the rink. He made a great play on the goal to Jecho to beat Canada, but he really enjoys defending. He’s physical, he likes to break up plays. He finds value at both ends of the rink which obviously is something that excites us because at a certain age, sometimes you just think of the offense or you think of the glamour part of the game. He showed a real desire to impact the 200-foot part of the game and he was a very good player on a very good team at a very young age.”
The Blues have the ability to monitor more closely the progress of those playing in North America, but what about Sweden’s Otto Stenberg (2023, first round, No. 25) and Theo Lindstein (2023, first round, No. 29)? Players who have been toiling in the Swedish Hockey League who fell short of expectations of medaling this year after losing to Jiricek, Jakub Stancl (2023, fourth round), Jecho (2024, third round), Ondrej Kos (2024, third round) and Czechia in the bronze medal game?
Stenberg, a forward, finished with eight points (three goals, five assists), while Lindstein, a defenseman who took the tournament by storm last year and led all d-men in points with eight (two goals, six assists) in seven games, had four assists at this year’s tournament.
“That’s something that we debate quite a lot is I really see the benefit of [Dalibor] Dvorsky playing in major junior and Stancl playing in major junior,” Armstrong said. “These guys are playing against men. Men and a job in which coaches get hired and fired because of wins and losses. It’s harder for a younger player. And so you see them at this tournament against their peer group, they have a bigger role.
“I would say that both guys, you have to fight for every inch that you get at that age, at 19, at that league that they play in. Their minutes aren’t what they would be if they were playing against their peers exclusively. But that’s how the Europeans do it and we accept that.
“Otto had a very good tournament and so did Theo. Theo, I thought last year sort of took the tournament by surprise. This year, his game was more subtle and I think that was a positive. He was a top four defenseman that they relied on. The countries knew what he did last year and I thought he was very good keeping and maintaining a strong two-way game, which I thought showed very well as a maturing player.”
Dvorsky’s tournament was certainly a success, despite Slovakia’s ouster in the quarterfinal, as was Pekarcik’s was as well (seven points; three goals, four assists in seven games). But last and certainly not least, what about defenseman Colin Ralph, following in Jimmy Snuggerud’s footsteps and winning a gold medal with USA this year?
The St. Cloud State University defenseman and 2024 second-round pick held his own playing on a very talented roster; he had one assist in seven games playing on USA’s third pair.
“I hadn’t seen him obviously. I didn’t go to Shattuck [St. Mary’s] last year,” Armstrong said. “I talked to his family too. It was interesting too. If you get into that American program at 17 or 18, you build that friendship and you build that camaraderie not only on the ice but the parents and all them, they travel. He just sort of came in, a late birthday last year’s draft. He did very well.
“He’s a rangy player, excellent skater, a player that probably … I don’t know if they had him penciled in on that team, but going into the summer, but he did very good at the event in August and was having a very good year. But he looks like a really strong, lanky defender that can kill plays with his stick and that’s an exceptional skater. He looks like a player that I’m certainly excited about because that’s the type of length we can use on our back end.”
