Team Canada upset by Latvia in shambolic performance and more from Day 2 at 2025 World Juniors

Day 2 of the 2025 World Juniors was another busy four-game slate, but it was all overshadowed by Canada’s lackluster, lifeless showing against Latvia in a shootout loss that will go down as the biggest upset in tournament history.

Here are the day’s notes and thoughts from The Athletic’s prospects writers Corey Pronman and Scott Wheeler on it all.

• Slovakia defeated Switzerland 2-1 in an important game for quarterfinal seeding. Draft-eligible prospect Jan Chovan netted the game-winner in the final minutes off an ill-advised turnover from Capitals prospect Leon Muggli.
• Finland edged Germany 3-1 in what was a one-goal game up until the final seconds. Golden Knights prospect Tuomas Uronen was selected by Finland as their player of the game.
• Sweden routed Kazakhstan 8-1. Sabres prospect Anton Wahlberg scored two goals and four points. Top 2025 NHL Draft prospect Victor Eklund was selected by Sweden as their player of the game with one goal and two points.
• Canada lost in an eight-round shootout to Latvia, a team it had previously played four times at the World Juniors and had beaten by a combined score of 41-4. Flyers first-rounder Jett Luchanko and Avalanche first-rounder Calum Ritchie scored for Canada. Capitals prospect Eriks Mateiko scored for Latvia.

Canada in disarray

When Hockey Canada made their final cuts from selection camp and management group lead Peter Anholt met with the media at the team’s hotel in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago, he spoke about how much more prepared this team was than the disappointing one that went out with a whimper in the quarterfinals a year ago. They named their coaching staff earlier, he said. They participated in the World Junior Summer Showcase this year after not having any World Juniors programming the previous summer, he said. “I really know this player,” he kept saying when asked about his guys. He talked about having been with this group all the way back to the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, and all of the guys from that team that were on this one. They’d brought back a Stanley Cup-winning head scout of almost 40 years in Al Murray, who’d twice been their chief evaluator for gold medal-winning teams.

A year ago, then-head coach Alan Letang talked after almost every game about his team’s struggles getting to the net and finishing plays in the dirty areas around the crease. On Friday night, it was the same story. Only in the lead-up to this year’s tournament, staff publicly hinted at their disappointment in last year’s team. Scott Walker, a member of the management group, flew to meet with returnees Tanner Molendyk and Brayden Yager to tell them they needed to set a higher standard for this group. That Team Canada beat Latvia 10-0. This year, Hockey Canada set out to construct a more competitive roster. And the roster they’ve built, with 11 first-rounders, couldn’t put Latvia — with its two drafted prospects — away. They never really even came close. Before their 0-for-8 run in the shootout, they put the game in Latvia’s hands with 42.4 seconds left in overtime, after an inexcusable bench minor for too many men. Their 56 shots on goal don’t even tell the story, because you can count on one hand the number of them that were truly threatening.

It sure doesn’t feel like they know their guys, either, and that has been most evident on their dreadful, disjointed, 1-for-7 power play. The scrappy but small Tanner Howe didn’t look like a fit at the net-front early. Oliver Bonk, who hasn’t run his own junior club’s power play the last couple of years, didn’t look like a fit at the top of the umbrella. Sam Dickinson, who runs that unit and leads all power-play quarterbacks in the OHL with nine power-play goals and 19 power-play points through 26 games this season, wasn’t even given a look on one of their units Friday after they’d gone 0-for-6 to start the tournament and their top power-play guy, Matthew Schaefer, left the game and didn’t return (a story which would have been the story of the day on any other day). Bradly Nadeau, who has gone downhill on the flank prolifically for every team he has ever played for, is positioned in the bumper looking for tips and redirects. Carson Rehkopf, the team’s biggest shot threat, who has 72 goals in his last 87 OHL games and led the OHL in power-play goals last year, has yet to be registered for the tournament after filling the net in selection camp.

Forget all the talk about the players they left off — and the talent and power-play proficiency of guys like Zayne Parekh, Beckett Sennecke and Andrew Cristall — this is the team they chose and there should be no excuses for how it looked on Friday.

The heat deserves to be turned all the way up and it starts at the top. — Scott Wheeler

Radivojevic leads Slovakia

Luka Radivojevic was named Slovakia’s best player versus Switzerland. It wasn’t a perfect game by any means for him, as he did get beat on the lone Switzerland goal by a player coming out of the penalty box. Otherwise, he was Slovakia’s most noticeable player. The 2025 eligible defenseman displayed his skating, skill and vision throughout the match, making a ton of plays. He’s a small defender so some NHL scouts have reservations about his ultimate projection, but he showed why he could go anywhere from the second to the fourth round because he has legit offensive talent. — Corey Pronman

Finns need more from top forwards

After getting blanked by Canada, the Finns needed an empty-netter to put away Germany. They’ve beaten a goalie twice in two games and need more from their top forwards. Sabres first-rounder Konsta Helenius, who has been a good player in the AHL, was a top player in Liiga last year and even played for the men’s national team, has made some plays but has one assist through two games and has been far from dominant. Stars first-rounder Emil Hemming and Sharks second-rounder Kasper Halttunen, their two best pure scorers (Halttunen has the heaviest shot in the tournament for my money), have been non-factors. I’ve liked Kraken prospect Julius Miettinen up front for them but they need a lot more from their big guns up front. — Scott Wheeler

(Photo: Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press via AP)