Dallas Stars: 2018 World Championship Underway For Five Stars
By Josh Clark
The 2018 IIHF World Championship is underway in Denmark and various NHL stars are on the scene. Five Dallas Stars players are involved, and they are all quite young.
The Dallas Stars don’t have the Stanley Cup Playoffs to keep them busy at this time of year. But for a few lucky Stars players, they have the next best thing: the World Championship.
Every year, the IIHF hosts the World Championship in the early part of summer, typically throughout the month of May. The tournament takes around two weeks time and is an opportunity for NHL players not in the playoffs to play for their home country. In addition, non-NHL players can also play for their home countries, presenting an intriguing mixture for many rosters.
This year’s tournament is scheduled to run from May 4-20.
And considering no NHL athletes had the opportunity to play for their home team in the Winter Olympics this past year, this will be the next best thing. And for the Dallas Stars, there always seems to be a good stock of representation.
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While it’s disappointing that the Worlds continually serve as the Stars’ source of playing time in May, at least it’s something. After all, a big perk of the championship itself is the experience and exposure that it offers players.
And this time around, five Dallas Stars players will get plenty of extra exposure against other NHL talent. But they may not be the five names that you would guess are playing.
The Stars sent five players to the World Championship this year. Mattias Janmark and John Klingberg are playing for Team Sweden, Julius Honka and Miro Heiskanen are playing for Team Finland, and Radek Faksa is playing for Team Czech Republic. While you may think that any Stars representatives would need to be named Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, or Alexander Radulov, that isn’t the case.
The intriguing part about this group is that all five Dallas Stars players are at or below the age of 25. That’s an impressive feat.
With the Championships getting underway on Friday, many of the Stars have already hit the ice with their home countries. Team Sweden got off to an impressive start against Belarus. In the game, John Klingberg tallied an assist and Mattias Janmark walked away with both a goal and an assist. It was a solid first game for a guy that has come a long way in just one year.
Finland finished off Korea in an impressive 8-1 fashion earlier today. Heiskanen finished the game with no points and a plus-3 rating, while Honka turned in a plus-1.
Radek Faksa and the Czechs play later today against Slovakia. Faksa is only one of four NHL skaters on the roster, so keep an eye on the young center and what kind of contribution he makes, especially after his career year with Dallas in 2017-18.
It just goes to show that the Stars own a good amount of quality young talent. It provides a convincing answer to any question about the team’s future in terms of player development and potential among their younger skaters.
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Janmark, Klingberg, Honka, Heiskanen, and Faksa all look to have a promising World Championship run. So stay tuned over the next two weeks to find out about all of their accomplishments!