The 2019 IIHF World Champions begins on Friday, May 10 with four Leafs players on four different teams. While we all would really prefer to be ignoring this tournament this year, it was not to be, and John Tavares, William Nylander, Nikita Zaitsev and Martin Marincin are taking the opportunity to play some more hockey. One of them is a favourite to win the gold medal.
This year’s tournament is in Bratislava and Kosice Slovakia, which is one of the reasons the Leafs released Marincin, who was eligible to join the Marlies, but now gets to play for the home team.