Granlund, Niederreiter to play at World Championships

ST. PAUL -- The National Hockey League's Minnesota Wild today announced that forwards Mikael Granlund (Finland) and Nino Niederreiter (Switzerland) will participate in the 2018 IIHF World Championship. Granlund will serve as captain for Team Finland at the tournament. Wild prospect Kirill Kaprizov (Russia) will also play in the tournament. The 2018 IIHF World Championship will take place May 4-20 in Copenhagen and Herning, Denmark.

The 16 teams are divided into two groups for the Preliminary Round. The top four ranked teams in each group will advance to the quarterfinals that will be played in a cross-over format on May 17. The first-place team in each preliminary-round group will play the fourth-place team in the other group, while the second-place team plays the third-place team of the other group.
The semifinals will be held on May 19 and the gold-medal game will be played on May 20. NHL Network is the exclusive U.S. TV home of the IIHF World Championship and will broadcast 40 of the tournament's 64 games, including all Team USA contests, both semifinal games, and the bronze and gold medal games.

Group A

Austria
Belarus
Czech Republic
France
Russia
Slovakia
Sweden
Switzerland

Group B

Canada
Denmark
Finland
Germany
South Korea
Latvia
Norway
United States
Sweden defeated Canada in the gold medal game last year and Russia defeated Finland in the bronze medal contest.