“Familiarity is huge,” Eden said. “It’s everything. Especially getting to play with them all last year, knowing who you’re on the ice with, being able to connect better. It just makes practices flow a lot better.”
While the roster is very similar to previous tournaments, there’s a new head coach in John Wroblewski, who was hired in May after Joel Johnson stepped down. Wroblewski, a Neenah, Wisconsin, native, most recently spent two seasons as the head coach of the Los Angeles Kings AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign. He was also the head coach of USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program for four seasons.
Josh Sciba and Shelley Looney join Wrobleski as assistant coaches.
Practices prior to the world championship games were spent getting used to the new coaching staff and style, Eden said.
“He’s really pushing us to focus on attention to small details that sometimes are overlooked,” Eden said.
Keeping some of those small details in mind and emphasizing the skills the players already have is helpful and will create more opportunities for the team, according to Eden. What kind of small details are they focusing on?
