WJC Update: Sabres prospects look good through the first weekend

The Sabres prospects have been making their presence felt throughout the first weekend of the IIHF World Junior Championship.

The first weekend of the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship is in the books. There has been plenty of action from the four Buffalo Sabres prospects that are playing in this year’s tournament, especially Dylan Cozens. But Cozens has not been the only Buffalo prospect to show promise during this year’s WJC.

JJ Peterka

Team Germany has been less than stellar so far. But Sabres prospect JJ Peterka has been effective throughout the tournament, with three points over his first two games. He has been a bright spot on a Germany team that has been outmatched in each of their first two games.

In Team Germany’s opening game vs Finland, Peterka tallied one point on one assist. He registered a plus/minus (+/-) of +1 in that game as well.

Germany faced Team Canada in their second game, which quickly got out of hand. They lost to Canada 16-2. But Peterka scored a very nice goal on an early power play opportunity for Team Germany. He also added an assist to his stat sheet late in that game.

We knew going into this year’s tournament that Team Germany was a long shot to win, but it has been nice to see JJ perform well on a team that is obviously outmatched and is also shorthanded for the time being.

Dylan Cozens

Dylan Cozens has been on fire to start the tournament. He has seven points over the first two games for Team Canada. It is a great showing for Sabres fans and they should be elated with Cozens’ performance so far.

When Team Canada played Team Germany in their first game of the tournament, they didn’t take long to show that they should be the team to beat. Cozens was right in the middle of the dominant performance.

He had three goals and three assists for Canada in their 16-2 victory over Germany. Cozens seemed to be all over the ice the entire game. It was an amazing performance for the Sabres prospect and something that should have gotten Buffalo fans very excited.

In Canada’s second game of the tournament, Cozens had one assist in a close 3-1 victory over Slovakia. But the steal that led to the assist was just as impressive as the pass itself. He had a great steal while getting back on defense and sent the puck up the ice for a breakaway goal.

Dylan has been extremely impressive throughout the WJC so far.  On a team as stacked as Team Canada, it is awesome to see him at the center of it all and performing so well.

Jack Quinn

Jack Quinn’s stats seem underwhelming if you compare them to the other Sabres prospect on Team Canada. For how good Team Canada has looked so far, some people would think that Quinn would have more stats to show for. But his lack of points on the stat sheet doesn’t mean he hasn’t been effective.

With that being said, he was pretty quiet in Team Canada’s dominant performance over Germany. Quinn had an assist early on in the game and that was it for him for points. Considering Canada scored 16 goals in this game, it came as a bit of a surprise he wasn’t involved in more of the scoring.

He had an improved showing vs Slovakia. He had an empty-net goal to seal the victory for Canada but was very effective while on the ice throughout the game as well. He looked very good defensively in this game, and he made some nice moves to create space for himself and his teammates. The more ice time he sees, the more improvement we will see.

Ryan Johnson

Defenseman Ryan Johnson has been pretty quiet on the stat sheet so far for Team USA. He has tallied one assist so far through their first two games. But as he is a defenseman, you wouldn’t expect him to have an abundance of points.

In the first game of the tournament for Team USA, which was a 5-3 loss to Team Russia, Johnson had no points and a +/- of zero. He was paired on the third defensive pairing so he didn’t see as much time as some of the other defenders, but he did have a nice pass to set up a scoring opportunity. He had 19 shifts throughout the game that averaged 45 seconds per shift.

In their game against Austria, the USA had a dominant showing, winning 11-0. Jonhson tallied his only point of the tournament so far on an assist in the first period. The USA defense was in total control of this game, only giving up 10 shots total.