Everybody’s favourite annual hockey tournament has been in full force for four days now, heading into their fifth day. Team Canada has won all three of their games so far, with one coming in overtime. Meanwhile, both Team Sweden and Team USA are leading the tournament with three wins in regulation.

While there hasn’t been much to report on from a Toronto Maple Leafs standpoint, prospects Ben Danford and Victor Johansson have been plugging away for Canada and Sweden, respectively. If you haven’t caught any of the tournament so far, here are four takeaways from four days of World Junior hockey.

From the moment Ben Danford was drafted by the Leafs in the first round of the 2024 NHL Draft, everyone knew that he wasn’t going to be a stat sheet merchant. The 6-foot-2 right-handed defenceman has always prided himself on being a shutdown guy who can make a strong first pass, and with seven defencemen dressed for most games and an odd abundance of right-handed defencemen, it was evident that Danford’s role was going to be extremely tailored for Team Canada. And so far, that’s the way it’s been.

Danford has one assist through three games for Canada so far, picking up a secondary assist on a Michael Hage goal against Team Czechia. Outside of that pleasant surprise, he’s been used in almost entirely defensive zone situations, even getting his ice time bumped in favour of Keaton Verhoeff, a projected top pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, against Denmark. This isn’t an indictment on Danford’s play, more just a highlight of what the team needs him for. You can likely expect to see him eating minutes on the penalty kill and in the defensive zone once higher-leverage matchups start to pour in after the round robin.

Victor Johansson was another somewhat unknown prospect when the Leafs drafted him in the fourth round of the 2024 NHL Draft, but started to turn hands in his post-draft season when he recorded 39 points in 47 games for Leksands IF of Sweden’s junior league. He’s spent this season playing for IK Oskarshamn of Sweden’s Allsvenskan league, their second-tier pro league, and has five points in 13 games on the season.

Johansson was scratched in his first game for Team Sweden and hasn’t played much in the games he’s gotten into, seeing less than seven minutes of ice time in each game. He was also on the ice for Sweden’s only goal against when they played Germany and blew them out 8-1. So far, not much to write home about for the Maple Leafs prospect, but there’s time for that to change.

Two years in a row, Canada has failed to medal at the World Juniors, and in each of those two years, it was Czechia that ended Canada’s medal hopes. The Czechs have been on the come-up in recent years, as seen in the way they handled Canada in the past two quarter finals, and this year, the competitive spirit between the two nations has remained high.

Canada opened the tournament against Czechia and won 7-5, which had to feel good inside Canada’s dressing room, but it’s not any reason to take Czechia lightly. It’s possible these two teams could meet again in the elimination rounds of the tournament depending on how everything shakes out, and it seems like we’re past the days where we can safely claim a victory for Canada before the two teams play.

Canada came extremely close to suffering a similar fate against Latvia like they did last year. If you don’t remember, Latvia squeaked by Canada 3-2 in the shootout on the back of Linards Feldbergs, who stopped a whopping 55 of 57 shots against Canada and stood tall in the shootout to help secure a massive upset for the Latvians.

This season, Canada came dangerously close to the same outcome. This time around, they didn’t let it get to a shootout and beat Latvia 2-1 in overtime, thanks to a goal from Michael Hage, but it was yet another close game in a matchup that, frankly, shouldn’t ever be close. The fact that Latvia beat Canada one year and came that close to doing so the next year is enough to say that, for the time being, Latvia has Canada’s number.

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