Simon Dalton presents his prediction for the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship.
Finland U-20
The last championship wasn’t successful for Finland. They were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Sweden (2:3), although the Finnish team looked way better. The next opponent of the Finnish team in the current championship is Germany that will try to retain their spot in League A. Finland will have two days to recover after this match before playing against Latvia. There’s no need to save some strengths, this is why Finland should easily beat Germany.
Germany U-20
Germany have played 5 games in 2023, losing all of them. In December, Germany has suffered defeats from Slovakia (5:6 OT), Norway (4:5 OT) and Switzerland (1:6 and 3:6 on shoot-out). The last championship saw Germany reaching the quarter-finals, but they were beaten by the USA (1:11) at this stage. The results of December have proved that Germany will have to struggle to remain in the top division.
Finland U-20 – Germany U-20 prediction
Finland has started this tournament by suffering a defeat from Canada (3:5), which was expected. Finland confidently beat Germany in the quarter-finals (5:2) in August 2022. The statistics of the head-to-head games between these two teams proves that Finland is a stronger side, as they have won all seven matches in regular time.
Finland are the obvious favourites of the game. Germany have performed too poorly in December. I believe that Finland will have an easy game to win.