So far the roster construction is dominating the conversation when talking about the impending World Cup of Hockey. When you look at Team Sweden you don’t see John Klingberg. He has a lot of points and yet he didn’t get selected in this first draft.

“We need both good offense and defense and I think we have that. Klingberg is a strong contender for that 7th spot,” said Team Sweden GM, Tommy Boustedt. “You need some guys to block shots and shutdown the opponents top line.”

Sweden is a real contender in this tournament. Partly because they have a plethora of players to choose from.

“We have 83 players in the NHL,” Boustedt added. “We’ve never had that many before.”

Team Czech Republic is Hoping to add Jaromir Jagr

Sometimes a team gets graded on what players are on the roster and sometimes they get criticized about who isn’t on the roster. When future Hall of Famer, Jaromir Jagr, didn’t appear on the roster, his former teammate and countryman, Martin Rucinsky had to explain why.

“The way he feels right now he didn’t want to be on the first roster,” Rucinsky stated. “After the playoffs we will sit down and discuss it again.”

After getting past that Rucinsky was the first executive to add KHL players to his roster. Even Team Russia has yet to do that. Vladimir Sobotka has played in 381 NHL games in his career.

“I’ll take him over NHL players,” Rucinsky said emphatically.

Michal Kempny (25, 6-0, 194, defenseman)  has never played in the NHL. That could be viewed as a risk.

“Michael might be a surprise to some but not to us. He’s strong and plays a lot of minutes. He’s never played on the smaller ice surface but we think he’ll be ok.”

Check back for continuing coverage of this event that’s just 199 days away.