Norway in Riga without main star and some veterans, but Turesen returns – Hockey – Sportacentrs.com

Norway’s biggest ice hockey star Mats Sucarello has agreed to play again in the world championship after an eight-year break, but he will go straight to the Czech Republic – having not played a single test match. The 36-year-old forward scored 63 (12+51) points in 69 games for the Minnesota “Wild” and will win his fifth world championship – the first three were at the beginning of his career while playing in Europe, but he only played in 2016 during his North American career. Succarello is out of a five-year, $30 million contract, but already has a two-year, $8.25 million contract in his pocket.

After a five-year break, Patrik Turesen, who at the age of 40 just became the champion of Norway and the league’s leading Norwegian, will play in the world championship, having accumulated 64 (22+42) points in 45 games. Turesen has 11 world championships – two in the first division (8+9 in 10 games) and nine in the elite (22+27 in 59 games). His clubmate Andreas Martinsen (7+13 in 73 games) is also aiming for his twelfth championship, who, like Turessen, has played more than 100 games in the NHL.

Several other well-known veterans will not be in the Czech Republic or Riga. 14 participants of the championships and this season’s Norwegian vice-champions Martins Reimarks and Matiss Ulimbs, who are only three matches short of 100 games in the world championships, were not included in the Riga team. Ulimbs chose his family instead of the national team as one of his priorities, but Reimarks was ready to fly to Riga, however, during the last week, he checked his health, changed his mind and refused the national team. Mattis Ullimb’s brother Ken Andre, who has played in 12 world championships, is also not in the squad. He had already joined the national team, but suffered an injury in one of the recent test matches.

Several young talents will travel to Riga. In this year’s draft, the middle of the first round is promised to 2005-born forward Mikael Brannseg-Nygor, while his peer Stjan Solberg is expected to be the middle of the second round. Both of them will join Swedish top league clubs next season. Norway has played six test matches – four matches against Denmark (1:3, 3:2, 4:3 overtime, 2:1 overtime) and two against Hungary (1:2, 2:3). In the World Championship, Norway will play in the second group and will play the first match on May 10 against Switzerland.

A year ago, at the world championship, Norway was second to last in the subgroup, ahead of only Slovenia, and lost to Latvia 1:2.

Norwegian composition

Resources used:
https://www.nitten.no/blogg/veteran…
https://radioh.no/vm-troppen-i-isho…
https://www.hockey.no/globalassets/…