The men's U18 World Hockey Championship starts this Saturday, with eight countries descending on the German towns of Landshut and Kaufbeuren for a week-plus of high stakes hockey with national pride and draft position on the line. It doesn't get much better than that. • Only adding to the intrigue is the fact that this isn't really what you'd call a best-on-best tournament. The timing is such that many European and Canadian junior leagues are either starting or well into their respective playoffs, barring many players that would take on sizeable roles from participating period. Teams had to get more creative with their roster construction than usual. • The downstream effect of those roster limitations is that some players are going to be asked to take on far more substantial roles than they would otherwise. Players that would feature in a depth role will now operate as critical components of their roster, on which their success depends more than your average player. • J.D. Burke picks...