Riga 2021 has been a unique World Championship - and memorable for a host of reasons on and off the ice. As we prepare for the decisive games, IIHF.com writers Lucas Aykroyd, Derek O'Brien and Andy Potts run the rule over some of the big talking points of the past two weeks.

We’ve heard ‘there are no easy games in international hockey’ from more teams than ever at this tournament. Are the surprise results simply a side-effect of COVID, or are we genuinely seeing the gap closing?

Lucas: I think we are seeing the gap closing to some degree. The Swiss and Germans have proved they can win medals when everything falls into place. The Czechs still produce enough quality players that they’ll be back in the medal mix before the 2020’s are out. And game to game, the likes of Denmark and Latvia can of course pull off group-stage upsets against the bigger nations. However, to go from 1 to 16 and opine that “anybody can beat anybody when all the chips are down” – no, we’re not there yet.

Derek: Mostly a COVID side-effect, to be honest. Most of the traditional hockey powers sent young teams to this tournament. Some of those other teams like Latvia and Kazakhstan had pretty much the same lineups they always have. Having said that, I was surprised how well Great Britain played. They were not beaten as badly as they were two years ago and most of their players hardly played this season. 

Andy: It’s been a fun tournament to watch, and we’ve had relatively few blow-outs this time. For the moment, though, it’s one tournament – and played in exceptional circumstances. In Slovakia, several countries found there were plenty of easy games, so it’s a little early to say that the gap is significantly narrower – even if most of the leading nations suffered a surprise loss along the way.

Which leads us to the biggest shock – Team Sweden. Do Johan Garpenlov and his team deserve all of the anger they faced from the media back home?

Derek: I think we all expect that Sweden will be back as a medal contender next year in the Winter Olympics and World Championship, so I don’t see any reason to jump in the ocean over this one bad tournament. On the other hand, I have heard some concern that Sweden is unable to win when they can’t bring their star players – it was also the case in PyeongChang – so that would be a question of depth. 

Andy: The most interesting comments I read in the Swedish media suggested that the recent success for the Tre Kronor was almost entirely player led, rather than coaching based. The argument was that Garpenlov might as well stay in post because the roster in Beijing will be a very different animal from the team that played here. If that view has merit, it’s a double-edged sword for Swedish hockey: more than one nation has arrived at tournaments with a powerful roster, only to be outwitted by a coaching masterclass.

Lucas: For me, the anger really speaks to a larger frustration with Swedish underachievement on the international stage. Yes, they won the Worlds three times in the 2010’s, but the expectations every year are so high because of the elite talent they produce. Nowadays you almost expect them to be in the final four every year, if not the gold medal game. So the fact that this team – thought not on par with its recent counterparts man for man – is the first one to miss the quarter-finals makes it, in a way, the scapegoat for losing to Belarus in the 2002 Olympic quarter-final, getting eliminated at home in 2012 by the Czechs, losing to Germany in the 2018 Olympic quarter-final, and so on.

There were more positive surprises from Kazakhstan and Germany. The Germans are suggesting this can be the ‘new normal’ for them – are they right?

Derek: Judging by the results from their recent U20 and U18 teams – and some of those players are here this year – then yes, they are right. Germany’s best players are all 25 and younger, and of course the best one isn’t even here. They don’t have the depth of the top hockey nations and maybe they never will, but it’s no longer a big upset when they beat them. 

Andy: We’ve seen a lot of nations come close to adding themselves to the big six and Germany is the latest pretender. The positives, as Toni Soderholm points out, revolve around the number of youngsters emerging in German hockey and the ever-increasing quality of the DEL. But this is still a process, and while it would be great to see the team leave here with hardware, that should not be taken as the start of an immediate flurry of medals. It will take a few years before we can say whether the Germans have consolidated a position at the top of the game.

Lucas: Why not? They’ve finally supplemented their work ethic with an ability to score (see Messrs. Noebels, Reichel, Plachta here). Of course, they now have high-profile, legitimate NHL role models in the likes of Leon Draisaitl, Tim Stutzle, and Philipp Grubauer, and that’s only going to spur more talent development in a rich nation of 83 million.

And what about Kazakhstan? It’s rare to see a promoted team do so well, but how sustainable is it?

Derek: They looked like a very well-coached, disciplined, in-sync team here, and that type of team can have success when overmatched talent-wise. And of course, they have KHL-level talent. Time will tell, but my feeling is it was more about this one group playing well together and a lot of the better teams being weaker than normal.

Lucas: In Riga, the Kazakhs did a marvelous job tactically and really squeezed everything out of their available talent pool. But long-term, their tournament-leading shooting percentage (12.5) is not sustainable. And Belarus can attest to the ups and downs of reliance on naturalized players.

Andy: I think we might be seeing a bit more stability from Kazakhstan this time. 2021 might be the high-water mark for some time to come, but this is a team with some young local talent involved – goalie Nikita Boyarkin, Nikita Mikhailis among the forwards. In the past, regular changes of coaching staff have hurt the Kazakh program; if Yuri Mikhailis is to remain in post, he could nurture a new generation of Kazakh players as they lay some foundations in the top division.

Looking at the final four, it’s difficult to pick out a clear favourite. Which team would you make a case for?

Andy: My heart says Germany, because who doesn’t love an underdog with bite? But if I’m placing a bet, it would be on Canada. Sure, it’s not any kind of stacked roster. True, they started dreadfully and – arguably – didn’t deserve to get out of the group. But there are signs that the team is starting to come together, almost in spite of itself, and with questions marks over every remaining team I’m persuaded by the character that has kept the Canadians alive in the tournament so far.

Lucas: It’s hard to bet against the defending champs. The Finns bring more “been there, done that” value than any of their rivals. They are calmly grinding out one win after another with their defence-first system, and top goalie Jussi Olkinuora has been great (1.18 GAA, 95.0 save percentage). If there’s a question mark, it’s scoring. The Finns are averaging 2.5 goals a game (20 goals in eight games), which is low. If they maintain that pace and win gold, they would become the lowest-scoring champions (25 goals in 10 games) since the IIHF adopted the current 64-game format in 2012. The previous low was set in 2013 when Sweden broke the 27-year-old “home ice curse” in Stockholm (28 goals in 10 games).                                         

Derek: I say this every year: Once you’re in the final four, it’s almost a crapshoot. After some deliberation, I like the way the USA has played all tournament and I could see them winning it all.
Interestingly, two of the four teams remaining have never played in a World Championship final (since the introduction of the knockout stage). USA and Germany could both make it this year, which would be something. 

And a couple of more general ones: with the action almost done, which player has emerged in this tournament and really caught your eye? 

Andy: As the British writer on this team, I’ll unashamedly wrap myself in the Union Jack and talk up Liam Kirk. There have been high hopes around him for a while now, fuelled by his selection by the Coyotes in the 2018 draft. Two years ago in Slovakia he didn’t make an impact, but this year, despite minimal playing time during the season, he was a big hit. Scoring seven goals in seven games for a team that spends as much time defending as Great Britain proves there’s a high-class sniper in there. At 21, his next move could be crucial – and hopefully he showed enough in Riga to get a spot within the Coyotes system.

Lucas: The hands, the vision, the smarts – Conor Garland has jumped out at me at these Worlds more than he has in his three seasons with the Arizona Coyotes. At 25, he looks like he still has even more to give on both the international and NHL stage. With the right linemates, he’s a joy to watch.

Derek: I know everyone’s going to talk about Liam Kirk here. The only thing I’m left wondering after watching him is why he wasn’t in at least the AHL last season. The fact that he did so much after playing so little is really something.

Otherwise, I covered a lot of Slovakia’s games and Peter Cehlarik really impressed me. Yes, he put up the offensive numbers but he really seemed to carry that team, put them on his shoulders and when they really needed a goal, he seemed to get it. I know Craig Ramsay thinks the world of him and a lot of people think he didn’t get enough of a shot in Boston. After a great year in Sweden and this tournament, we’ll see what’s next for him. 

How much has the lack of spectators affected the championship, both as a spectacle and as a competition? 

Derek: Honestly, I didn’t notice it so much until we had the game with fans. I guess I’m used to watching hockey that doesn’t attract so many fans. But when we finally had that Latvia-Germany game, the fans in the arena with the drums and the chants brought so much atmosphere. It’s just a shame we only got that for one Latvia game, but better than nothing. 

Lucas: Specifically for Latvia, you wish their fans could have attended more games just because they’re so overwhelmingly passionate. Hosting means so much for this country of 1.9 million. I think the players, from all over the world, have adapted to playing and putting their best foot forward with or without spectators. That said, I’m mainly just grateful that we got to have an IIHF World Championship at all! But I’m definitely looking forward to having the buzz back in the buildings in Tampere and Helsinki next year.

Andy: I’ve found it tough, to be honest. It lacks the sense of occasion that makes a big sporting event what it is. Of course, it’s far better than last year, when we had no tournament at all, but Riga 2021 is always going to be remembered as an oddity, and that’s sad for a host nation that can put on a great hockey show under normal circumstances.