Colorado Avalanche: Catching up with the Players at IIHF Worlds

Six Colorado Avalanche players are representing their countries at the 2019 IIHF World Championship Tournament. Find out how they’re doing.

Colorado Avalanche players are no longer where they belong, playing spring hockey here in Denver — or St. Louis for away games. Next year, fellas. In the meantime, some of the players have decided they don’t want to stop the hockey playing just yet, and they’ve headed to Slovakia to represent their countries at IIHF Worlds.

This year’s tournament is taking place in Slovakia, specifically Bratislava and Kosice. The national teams are broken up into two groups.

Group A:

• Canada
• United States
• Finland
• Germany
• Slovakia
• Denmark
• France
• Great Britain

Group B:

• Sweden
• Russia
• Czech Republic
• Switzerland
• Norway
• Latvia
• Austria
• Italy

The tournament takes place between May 1 to 26.

Colorado has six players representing their countries in the IIHF Worlds Championship, five NHLers and an Eagle. Interestingly, they’re all playing for different countries. Let’s check in on their progress so far.

Tyson Jost

Forward Tyson Jost left almost immediately after the Colorado Avalanche’s elimination in Game 7 for Slovakia. Indeed, he even missed Sam Girard’s Vegas birthday celebration.

Naturally, Jost is representing his native Canada in the tournament. Canada is ranked third in Group B, behind Germany and Finland. They’ve played four games, earning three wins and a regulation loss and earning nine points.

Jost has played in three of those games. He doesn’t have any goals yet, but he does have two assists. Here’s one of them, a beauty of an assists:

Here is the infamous Eurolanche with one of their members posing with Jost:

Tyson and Team Canada next play May 18 against Germany.

Philipp Grubauer

Team Germany was excited to have goalie Philipp Grubauer on board:

He warmed up right away with the Team Germany coaching staff:

He does look pretty handsome in his German gear:

Let’s not focus on the fact that the IIHF tweeter got the colors of his mask wrong. I can see calling burgundy maroon, but where did the yellow come from? Because you can see in the clip below that he’s wearing his Avs mask.

Of course, halfway through the game, Team Germany broke Grubauer:

TSN commentators remarked that Grubauer had suffered a muscle tweak. The injury happened on May 14. Germany had a game the next day, and Grubauer didn’t play.

Doesn’t the German national team know they’re supposed to return our goalie in the same shape they found him in?

Germany is number-one in Group A, having won all their games. As noted, they’ll next play May 18 against Canada. Hopefully Grubauer suits up.

Gabriel Landeskog

Both Tyson Jost and Philipp Grubauer headed directly for Slovakia after the locker clean-out day. However, Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog took the time to head to Vegas for Girard’s birthday celebration. Indeed, it was almost a surprise when he turned up in Slovakia.

Here’s the Swedish introduction of Landeskog:

Our captain speaks English without an accent, so it’s always a little odd, in a fun way, for me to hear him speak his native Swedish.

Anyway, while Landeskog was apparently a little worried about being pranked upon his arrival, the nervousness didn’t carry through to his game performance:



Apparently Vegas wasn't too much for Gabe, nor was an international flight spanning eight time zones. Because he played in the game that night and scored seemingly right away.

Indeed, he recorded a goal and two assists that night:

Naturally, here in Avs Nation we are very proud of our Swedish captain, even when he's not scoring goals for the Colorado Avalanche:

Our cap.... simply likes to be in pictures:

Team Sweden is number-four in Group B, earning three wins and a regulation loss for nine points. Landeskog has played in just one game, earning that goal and two assists to help the Swedes to a victory over Austria.

Sweden next plays on May 18 against the Swiss.

Nikita Zadorov

All’s quiet on the Nikita Zadorov front.

Well, by that I mean there are no social media posts about Zadorov that I can post. In any case, this is Nikita’s first appearance at the IIHF World Championship tournament.

Previously he did represent Russia at the 2014 World Junior Championship, during which time they won bronze. In that tournament, Zadorov led all Russian defensemen with four goals and five points.

So far, Zadorov has played three games with Team Russia. He hasn’t recorded any points yet. However, he is a defenseman. He’s +4 so far in the tournament.

Team Russia is number-one in Group B, having won all four of their games in regulation and earning 12 points. Like the other teams on this list, they next play May 18. They’ll face Team Latvia.

Sven Andrighetto

Until July 1, forward Sven Andrighetto is still a member of the Colorado Avalanche. After that… well, he’s an unrestricted free agent. So, we don’t really know what’s in store for him.

In any case, Andrighetto has done pretty well in the tournament so far. He’s played in two games and earned a goal:

Fun fact: Former Colorado Avalanche goalie Reto Berra is also playing for Team Switzerland. He’s played two games so far, earning a win in both.

Indeed, Team Switzerland is second only to Russia in Group B. They have won all four of their games in regulation, having earned 12 points. The difference-maker is the goals for/against ratio. Russia’s is 23:2, while Switzerland’s is 20:2.

Switzerland next plays May 18 against Sweden.

Pavel Francouz

Goalie Pavel Francouz was the Colorado Eagle’s main goalie this season. He’s an unrestricted free agent coming July 1, but I somehow think the organization will offer him a contract.

Until then, Francouz is playing for his native Czech Republic. This is the sixth time the goalie has played for the national team. He previously represented the Czech Republic in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018 at IIHF Worlds.

Also, at the time of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Francouz wasn’t an NHLer. As such, he was able to represent his county.

The Czechs are number three in Group B, having recorded three regulation wins and a regulation loss in four games. The Czechs will play today against the Italian National team.

It’s nice knowing there are still some Colorado Avalanche players playing hockey through mid-June. Yes, if not for a bogus disallowed goal call, they’d still be playing NHL hockey. However, we have to take what the hockey gods send us.

And for now, that’s the IIHF Worlds Championship tournament.