2023 Wild Juniors Day 3: Bankier on the board

The 2023 World Juniors are rolling on and it has been a crazy one so far. Not to give any spoilers away for how some Minnesota Wild prospects might have performed, but the results have been abnormal to say the least.

I guess you’ll have to find out exactly what happened in each game as you read through what our favorite team’s prospects have been up to.

Caedan Bankier, Canada vs. Germany

Oh, the classic Canadian double-digit goal beatdown of a lesser opponent. This is when you know the tournament has truly been kicked off.

Wild prospect Caedan Bankier and his teammates defeated Germany by a score of 11-2 and in the middle of all that offense, Bankier managed to get his first point of the tournament, an assist on the tenth Canadian goal.

The highlight of Zack Ostapchuk’s goal wasn’t long enough to even include Bankier’s secondary assist, but let’s just pretend that it was super cool. Nevertheless, it is a really good moment for Bankier, who most would not have projected to be on this roster just three or four months ago. The ice has been broken, so maybe he will get his first goal or first multi-point game against Austria on Thursday.

Jack Peart, United States vs. Slovakia

The Wild defenseman prospect did not get on the board, but he was playing on the top pairing next to Luke Hughes at even-strength play. Unfortunately, this game was so riddled with special teams action that Peart’s ice-time was limited to just 18:47 TOI. Certainly among his biggest opportunities, but not a whole lot of consistent action as the United States tried to get back in this one.

If you haven’t heard by now, the rascal Slovakia were able to win this one by a score of 6-3 after they scored three goals in just over three minutes in the second period. With that in mind, the American bench really rode Hughes until exhaustion, sending him our there for 25 minutes while no other teammate played over 20.

Peart has overall taken a massive step since the World Juniors just earlier this year, so it’s nice to see the confidence he’s getting from leading the St. Cloud blue line this season on the ice for his country.

Servac Petrovsky, Slovakia vs. United States

While we can be disappointed about Peart and the Americans losing, we can at least say that a Wild sixth-rounder was the first-line center for the winning team in this upset.

Petrovsky did not finish with any points, but Slovakia really depended on the 18-year-old and had him out there for 19:12 TOI. He finished with a zero plus/minus rating, so it’s not as nice looking as being a plus in a win, but that only means that he was given the job of trying to shutdown the top American attackers and he limited them to a losing effort. He can’t explode offensively every game, especially when they’re the significant underdogs — he’ll rely on his top prospect teammates like Simon Nemec to do all that.

We’ll see Peart and Bankier back in action on Thursday, as well as David Spacek and Liam Öhgren facing off against one another as Czechia plays Sweden.