Devils News: Updates Following World Juniors Quarterfinals

The New Jersey Devils are fresh off a loss to the Carolina Hurricanes who are now on an eleven-game winning streak. Caroline is getting awfully close to New Jersey’s season-high mark of 13 which wouldn’t be fun watching their eclipse.

The loss came in a shootout though as the Devils found a way to stay in the game thanks to some big plays by their best players. This, however, is not the only bit of news going on in the land of the New Jersey Devils though.

The World Junior Championships are officially in the elimination rounds which means that any country can go home with any loss.

How are the Devils’ prospects doing? Well, two of them, in particular, have been amazing stand-out players that are only going to keep getting better as the years go on.

The New Jersey Devils prospects are impacting the World Junior Championships.

We’ll start with Simon Nemec who has been one of the best defensemen in the entire tournament. He is the captain of Team Slovakia who had an impressive run through the preliminary round earning a spot in the quarterfinals.

In order for Slovakia to get as far as they did, they needed him to be as good as he was which was impressive to watch. The Devils clearly have a great player coming with Nemec who hopes to be on the NHL team for a very long time.

Unfortunately, Nemec’s tournament is over. His team fought hard but they were defeated in overtime by Team Canada.  Nemec was a big part of the game but Connor Bedard scored in overtime (his second of the game) to give Canada the win.

Bedard isn’t going to be on New Jersey’s radar because they don’t plan on winning draft lotteries again for a long time but he is someone worth watching for all hockey fans. Some team is going to be very happy later this year.

As for Nemec, he should be incredibly proud of his tournament. He should come back to the Utica Comets with incredible confidence as another big step in his development is done.

Luke Hughes is the other top prospect in New Jersey’s organization and he was brilliant in this tournament as well playing for Team USA (also a team captain).

Unlike Nemec, Hughes is going to advance to the semi-finals (they defeated Germany 11-1 in the quarter-final) where he and his American teammates are going to face that amazing Canadian team. It should be a very good game on Wednesday night.

Topias Vilen and his Finnish teammates are out as they were defeated by Team Sweden in the quarter-final. As for Petr Hauser and Team Czech, he scored a goal in their 9-1 victory over Team Swiss, and are headed to the semis as well.

On Wednesday, Team Czech will face Team Sweden in the first semi-final matchup of the tournament.

As mentioned before, Team USA will reignite its rivalry with Canada right after that so there is a lot of intrigue here. It should be an amazing end to what has been an amazing tournament.