Goalie Announcements (Sep 14)

The last three warm-up games are being played today and they get started nice & early.  If it is anything like yesterday's game, we should start to see our expected starters for opening night for each team in the tournament.

The Czech Republic will get the tough test of slowing down Team North America at 1:30pm MT, televised on Sportsnet and Sportsnet One.  This game will go in Pittsburgh at the Consol Energy Center.

The Czechs are expected to split the goaltending duties between their top two keepers, Petr Mrazek and Michal Neuvirth, while the kids will go with... well, they've decided not to announce the starter ahead of time, so we'll wait for warm-ups ahead of the game, which are not too far away.

Clayton opted to take Mrazek for his side, but Neuvirth wasn't selected at the draft on Sunday.  As for the youngsters, both Matt Murray and John Gibson were selected, by Benson and Scott, respectively, and they were the only two to get starts so far in the warm-up.  What are the chances that Connor Hellebuyck gets a start today?

Then the first of two early evening games, Sweden and Europe will go head-to-head in a pre-tournament match-up, this one will go on 5pm MT on Sportsnet 360.  These two teams will invade the Verizon Center in Washington, which should be a good setting for this one.

It should come as no surprise that Henrik Lundqvist will get the call for Sweden, while on the European side, it looks like Jaroslav Halak won the job and will get the extra look in the warm-up.  Philipp Grubauer will get a look from the bench tonight as the back-up, but there is no expectation that he would play.

Lundqvist was the 11th overall pick for Cam at the draft, while the European goalies were not touched, as they are not expected to do so well in this tournament.  This could be a huge upset if they were to run the table.

The "late" game will start at 5:30pm MT on the main Sportsnet channels and it will see Russia play Canada in back-to-back games at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh.

It's a great match-up in the nets for the rivalry game, as it will be Sergei Bobrovsky for the Russians and Carey Price going for the Canadians, both expected to be the number ones for their respective teams to start the tournament.  Neither team should have an issue with their goaltending, but that's another one of those reasons they play the game... just to find out those sorts of things.

Dale opted to take Price with the 4th overall pick in the draft, while Bobrovsky was taken 52nd... by Dale.  Two starting goalies is a good way to start the tournament, one would think.