They’re getting in NHL shape while playing for trophies at World Cup of Hockey

Reaching the semifinals of the World Cup of Hockey has many benefits for the NHL players who are representing their homelands (or the collective Team Europe) in the tournament’s final stages.

They’re testing themselves daily, vying for a major championship in a hockey-mad city, and — perhaps best of all — they’re excused from participating in the tedious first few days of NHL training camps.

While their NHL teammates were doing sprints and other conditioning drills in rinks around North America on Friday, players for Canada, Russia, Sweden and Team Europe enjoyed their surroundings at the Air Canada Centre as they prepared for Saturday’s knockout games. Canada will face Russia on Saturday at 4 p.m. PDT, and Sweden will face Team Europe at 10 a.m. Sunday PDT. The winners will face off in a best-of-three final that is set to begin Tuesday.

For Canada forwards Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf, getting this far means they’re postponing their reunion with hard-driving Randy Carlyle, who was rehired as the Ducks’ coach after being fired in 2011. “I can’t wait to see him,” Perry said, smiling.

Getzlaf also laughed at the thought of skipping Carlyle’s first sessions. “Obviously, it would be nice to be back with our guys and getting things going for the season but this will be good for us,” he said. “We’ll be able to continue it back home.”

Most players who participated in the World Cup and were eliminated after first-round play are being allowed to take a few days off. Getzlaf said he’s not sure what his schedule will be if Canada advances to the final. “I don’t know,” he said. “You call Randy.”

Perry, who was chosen as a late replacement after Kings center Jeff Carter withdrew from the tournament, said he especially appreciates getting this far with Canada. “To have the opportunity to play here and play for your country and get that call, it doesn’t matter when it was,” he said. “It’s definitely a tremendous feeling and an honor to put on this jersey.”::

Starting the season by playing in the World Cup tournament could make for a lot of hockey for some players, including Kings and Europe center Anze Kopitar.

Before the World Cup, he played for Slovenia in an Olympic qualifying tournament, helping lead his homeland to a berth in the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Slovenia qualified for the 2014 Sochi Olympics but Kopitar wasn’t able to participate in that qualification process.

Asked to compare the experience of Olympic qualifying with his World Cup experience with Team Europe, Kopitar acknowledged that playing for Slovenia held a special place in his heart.

“It’s a little bit different. To qualify for the Olympics, it’s a big thing, first of all for me, because I had never been a part of that before. Some of the guys had been but I didn’t have time to play with the guys to qualify,” he said. “And then the second thing, for our country really, it’s a nation of 135 registered players that we can scrape up. And for us to qualify again for the Olympics, I think that’s a huge thing.”

But Team Europe’s progress here has become a big thing for him too.

“Coming here, we wanted to in some way to showcase ourselves too, that this can work, that we’re not just here to be three and out, and I think we’ve kind of shown that,” said Kopitar, who has had one assist in three games. “I think we’ve jelled pretty well. There’s some chemistry between all of us and it showed on the ice, and now we’re not going to just be satisfied with [reaching] the semifinals. We want to win games, and that’s the plan.”

His Kings and Europe teammate Marian Gaborik said playing here might help players be sharper when the NHL season begins. “This could help us to have a good start to the year,” said Gaborik, who added that he has enjoyed the experience even though Team Europe was at a disadvantage because it had to quickly blend players from eight countries.

“The first few days was getting to know each other and make sure everybody understands the concept and everything. It was cool,” said Gaborik, who had a goal in the team’s first three games. “It’s like an NHL team, kind of. You have a lot of nationalities on an NHL team, so it’s nothing new to us. Everybody wears their flag on their shoulder and we play for each other and play for our country. It’s been a pretty cool project.”

The team’s success has been unexpected. A headline in the Toronto Sun posed the question “Euro Trash?” in casting aspersions about Europe’s chances, but players have proved that headline wrong.

“We’re not surprised we’re in this position. I’m sure a lot of people are,” Gaborik said, citing the 33-1 pre-tournament odds that his team would win. “Obviously we surprised a lot of people. We have a lot of experience in the room and a lot of championships in the room. I think everybody believes in this team. We play for each other, for the flag that we have on our shoulder, and I think we proved a lot of people wrong, which we like.”

helene.elliott@latimes.com

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