Montreal Canadiens: Ryan Poehling showing NHL skill for Team USA

Day three of the World Juniors saw three Montreal Canadiens prospects in action with Ryan Poehling, Cayden Primeau, and Alexander Romanov.

The Montreal Canadiens have been all over British Columbia this week. Day three was a quiet day at the 2019 World Junior Hockey Championships, but three of the organization’s prospects were on the ice. Alexander Romanov and Team Russia were looking to add another win this time against the Czech Republic while Cayden Primeau made his tournament debut facing off Kazakhstan with Ryan Poehling up front.

Romanov didn’t have the offensive burst he had in his first game, but he still stood out. The 2018 second-round pick played 22:37 (second to Alexander Alexeyev) including time on the first penalty kill and second powerplay units and had four shots on goal. That may be disappointing given his three-point performance against Denmark, but Romanov’s overall play was outstanding.

His skating will be a stape of his performance every night. The way he handles the puck through transition is very indicative of the modern day NHL defenceman, and there are few moments when Romanov isn’t moving his feet.

Another aspect of his game that is a clear strength is his physicality. Romanov doesn’t care about his size (standing at 5’11” and 185 pounds). He gets the big hit across, like the one on Filip Zadina, and the standard yet effective ones. The 18-year-old is consistent with his board work and contributed to zone clearances in the moments when Russia was getting hemmed in their own zone. Romanov would take the body to the puck carrier and allow one of his teammates to gain possession.

Romanov still contributed offensively even though he wasn’t on the scoring sheet. He was on the ice for the game-winning goal scored shorthanded as a passing play was disrupted sending Nikolai Kovalenko in on a two-on-one for the goal. It looked as if Romanov got a piece of the passing attempt to the slot, But Alexeyez ended up with the secondary assist.

It was still a good effort from Romanov as a penalty killer to prevent the cross-ice pass and force a less ideal play leading to the eventual goal.

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Russia’s victory was a coach’s dream with a 2-1 score while Team USA blew the doors open. The final tally was 8-2 for USA where Primeau stopped 11 of 13 shots.

Poehling found the scoresheet during the game scoring a goal and adding two assists. It didn’t take too long to get his first helper as Oliver Wahlstrom fired a shot past Vladislav Nurek off of the 2017 first-round pick’s faceoff win. Unfortunately, Kazakhstan got it right back as the American defence left an opening for Valeri Orekhov to come in and rifle a shot glove side on Primeau.

The US came back and put more in the net including Poehling in the second period. You see plays like this all the time in the NHL as Poehling used his body to drive the net. A quick backhand to forehand switch despite falling beat Nurek to make the score 6-1. Good things from the strong centre, all from a disruption that started in the neutral zone.

Before that, Poehling had the primary assist on Sasha Chmelevski’s powerplay goal. It was patience and timing that got the US the goal as Poehling waited until Chmelevski worked his way to the net before putting the puck on his tape.

It was a quiet night for Primeau who didn’t get worked very much seeing as the shots were 66-13.

Day four should be an interesting one with five prospects in action, including Poehling and perhaps Primeau.