2017 World Championship: How to Follow the Hurricanes

2017 IIHF World Championship
May 5 - 21, 2017
LANXNESS Arena - Cologne, Germany
AccorHotels Arena - Paris, France
Tournament Home Page
Full Schedule

There will be plenty of rooting interest for Carolina Hurricanes fans as the 2017 World Championship gets underway Friday in Germany and France. Seven Canes players will suit up for their respective countries this year.

In Canada, TSN will broadcast all 64 games live, and in the US, NHL Network will carry 27 games in the preliminary round including all games for Team USA (along with NBCSN and NBCSports app) and Team Canada, plus all semi-final and medal games. There is a six-hour time difference between local time in Germany/France and Eastern time zone.

Bookmark this page for schedules and how to watch, and stay tuned for updates throughout the tournament.

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Tournament Format

Sixteen teams are divided into two groups for the Preliminary Round.

Group A will set up shop at LANXESS Arena in Cologne and is comprised (in tournament seeding order) of Russia, USA, Sweden, Slovakia, Germany, Latvia, Denmark, and Italy.

Group B will skate at AccorHotels in Paris and is comprised of Canada, Finland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belarus, Norway, France, and Slovenia.

Each team will play one game against every team in its group in a round robin format. After the seven-game preliminary round, which wraps up May 16, the top-four ranked teams of each group advance to the quarterfinals that will be played in a cross-over format. The first-place team in Group A plays the fourth-place team of Group B (and vice versa), while the second-place team plays the third-place team of the other group. The winning teams advance to the semifinals and from there to the medal games.

The points system in place awards 3 points to a team that wins in regulation and splits 2 points to a team winning in overtime/shootout and 1 point to the team that tied in regulation.

For all games except the Gold Medal game, games tied in regulation will go to a 4-on-4 overtime for 10 minutes with a shootout to follow if there is no winner in the overtime period. If the Gold Medal game goes to overtime it will be played 5-on-5 for an additional 20 minutes before going to a shootout.

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Team USA

Team USA Home Page

For the second year in a row (and his fourth wearing red, white, and blue), Canes defenseman Noah Hanifin (#55) hopes to help Team USA achieve something they haven’t done in six decades: compete in a Worlds final. Hanifin will be most frequently paired on the blue line with Jacob Trouba and is expected to see action on both the power play and penalty kill. Team USA is young and has plenty of fire power with Jack Eichel, Johnny Gaudreau, and Dylan Larkin in their forward ranks, and they’ll be back-stopped by Jimmy Howard and Connor Hellebuyck.

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Team Sweden

Team Sweden Home Page

Four, count ‘em FOUR, Canes players will represent the three crowns in this year’s tournament, and for the first time ever, goaltender Eddie Lack will represent his country in international competition. He’ll be joined by Canes forwards Elias Lindholm (third year), Joakim Nordstrom (third year), and Victor Rask (fifth year). Lindholm will wear #28, the other three will wear their regular NHL jersey numbers. Other NHL notables joining the Canes contingent are Gabriel Landeskog (keep an eye on him with Lindholm and Rask) and William Nylander in the forward ranks and Victor Hedman and Oliver Ekman-Larsson anchoring a strong blue line for the Swedes.

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Team Finland

Team Finland Home Page

After completing an impressive 82-game rookie NHL season, the tireless Sebastian Aho (#20) is back on the ice for Team Finland. Not only did he skate in last year’s Worlds, earning silver, but he also took part in the World Cup of Hockey prior to beginning his first season in the NHL. This is his third year representing the Lions, and he’ll be reunited with Jesse Puljujarvi and likely centered by Valtteri Filppula. The rest of the Team Finland roster won’t bring a lot of name recognition among NHL fans (except for perhaps an Oskar Osala sighting), but the Finns are known for always bringing strong team chemistry to the tournament.

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Team Canada

Team Canada Home Page

Forward Jeff Skinner (#2) returns to international competition for the first time since 2013. This will mark Skinner’s fourth appearance with Team Canada. He’s projected to skate with Ryan O’Reilly on a line centered by Mark Scheifele and skated with Claude Giroux and Wayne Simmonds on the power play in exhibition action. Team Canada is the 800-pound gorilla of this tournament, having won 19 out of the last 20 including last year, coached by Hurricanes head coach Bill Peters. They are a heavy favorite to win a third straight title with a roster laden with NHL players.