2015 World Junior Championships: Wood on USA & Open Thread

Today begins the 2015 World Junior Championships.  They are being held in Toronto and Montreal this year, so the game times are reasonable.  There is only one prospect in the New Jersey Devils organization attending this year's tournament.  Surprisingly, it's 2013 fourth-round draft pick and Noble & Greenough forward Miles Wood.  He made the roster and will likely be used in a bottom six role.  Since it's so rare that prep-school based players make a WJC roster in this day and age, it'll be of some interest to see how Wood stacks up against the best under 20 year old players in the world.

For those of you already looking to the 2015 draft, this tournament will also feature a handful of what could be the top prospects in this year's draft class.  In addition to the big names of Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, there's also defenseman Noah Hanifin (USA), Lawson Crouse (Canada), Mikko Rantanen (Finland), and Pavel Zacha (Czech Rep.) among others to look for.

All USA games will be streaming on NHL.com and the NHL Network will be airing games throughout the day.  Here is the schedule at NHL.com for what the network will show. The best way to follow the tournament post-by-post for the American squad would be to head over to SBN College Hockey. Already, Jeff Cox and Chris Dilks have been all over the WJCs, even with line combinations for the USA team ahead of their first game against the defending champions, Finland.  Wood is slotted a fourth line winger, so he is expected to play.

This will be an open post for all WJC discussion.  If it's about the WJC tournament, then it can go here.  Game discussion, player discussion, and so forth.  All rules apply (especially the one about how streams are absolutely not allowed), so have at it with that in mind.