Updated Predictions
Day 1 of the World Juniors is in the books and while there weren’t any upsets, two medal favourites nearly stumbled out of the gate with both Russia and the US needing the shoot-out to get past Denmark and Finland respectively.
Updated tournament predictions are given in the table below – as a reminder, these predictions take into account both our initial predictions generated using NHL equivalencies, as well as an Elo-based adjustment to take into account the results that we’ve seen to date.
| Team | P(1) | P(2) | P(3) | P(4) | P(5) | P(6) | P(7) | P(8) | P(9) | P(10) |
| CAN | 55.3% | 26.1% | 9.5% | 1.4% | 6.3% | 0.8% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| USA | 35.6% | 37.6% | 12.7% | 2.5% | 8.8% | 1.4% | 1.1% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| RUS | 4.5% | 12.7% | 26.6% | 15.4% | 19.2% | 8.6% | 8.4% | 2.5% | 1.7% | 0.4% |
| SWE | 2.7% | 9.8% | 20.3% | 18.5% | 18.5% | 11.4% | 11.3% | 4.5% | 2.3% | 0.7% |
| CZE | 0.1% | 1.2% | 1.8% | 4.4% | 5.9% | 12.2% | 11.3% | 14.7% | 26.8% | 21.5% |
| SVK | 0.0% | 0.7% | 1.8% | 6.9% | 2.4% | 7.2% | 6.9% | 14.5% | 21.9% | 37.7% |
| DEN | 0.2% | 1.9% | 3.1% | 8.1% | 8.4% | 16.3% | 15.3% | 19.2% | 15.6% | 11.8% |
| SUI | 0.4% | 3.0% | 5.4% | 11.3% | 11.1% | 16.5% | 17.1% | 15.9% | 11.9% | 7.4% |
| GER | 0.2% | 1.7% | 4.5% | 13.2% | 5.4% | 12.6% | 12.0% | 19.1% | 14.2% | 17.3% |
| FIN | 0.9% | 5.4% | 14.2% | 18.2% | 14.0% | 13.0% | 16.0% | 9.5% | 5.4% | 3.3% |
After defeating Slovakia handily to open the tournament, Canada remains the prohibitive favourite, with their odds of winning gold inching upwards to 55.3%. Most of the uptick in the Canucks’ odds comes at the expense of the Americans, whose shootout win decreased their standing in the model slightly. Sweden is the big winner of the day, however, with their medal odds jumping up to roughly 1 in 3, an increase of about 6% of their initial chances.
Today’s Games
Not many big games on the schedule today, with 3 teams odds of winning sitting above 70% according to our model. The lone “close” match looks like it could be the deciding factor in who avoids the regulation game in Group B, with the Swiss sitting as slight favourite over the Czechs. The other interesting match-up is the first of the day, where the Danes, who may be underrated by our model due to a lack of NHLe data for the Danish leagues, take on the Swedes, who had no trouble handling the Czechs in their opener. Canada takes on Germany, and will win.
| Visitor | Home | Visitor Win % | Home Win % |
| Sweden | Denmark | 73.0% | 27.0% |
| Finland | Slovakia | 72.9% | 27.1% |
| Switzerland | Czech Republic | 56.5% | 43.5% |
| Canada | Germany | 95.8% | 4.2% |
puck++ 
Love this.
Suggestion if possible, put the previous odds in () or something just as an easier point of reference.