D-man Tomas Galvas (71st-ranked International skater) starred at the World Junior Championship earlier this season for silver medalist Czechia, and now has brought his act to international senior hockey at the World Championship. Galvas assisted on Czechia’s opening goal in a 4-3 victory yesterday over Sweden, and logged over 19 minutes of ice-time primarily against top-6 opponents. For his efforts at the WJC, Galvas was named to the all-star team (the other d-man all-star being Canada’s Zayne Parekh (CGY)), and has helped Czechia to a record of 2-0-1-0 (two wins and an OT loss) thus far at the WC.
Galvas is a powerful and fluid skater, and very elusive with the puck leading to very smooth D-zone exits. Also, despite his 5’10” frame, he is known as a heavy defender relied upon to log tough minutes against top forwards in Czechia’s highest professional league. His offensive game is elite as well, as shown by his performance for his pro team this season (24 points [8G 16A] in 32 games) and at the WJC (9 points [3G 6A] in 7 games).
The ranking given to him by NHL Central Scouting appears to underestimate his true abilities, as all available mock drafts list him as a solid second-rounder. This obviously can be attributed to a lack of size, although his obvious two-way abilities would seemingly counteract that at the NHL level.