In his latest installment, Draisaitl talks about his hat trick in the final pretournament game, and the excitement building for the start of the World Cup of Hockey on Saturday against Team USA (3:30 p.m. ET; ESPN2, SN, TVA Sports).

Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl is playing for Team Europe at the World Cup of Hockey 2016. The 20-year-old has agreed to keep a diary throughout the tournament, which begins in Toronto on Saturday and runs through Oct. 1.

I don't want to make too big a deal of getting less ice time in Team Europe's second pretournament game. I don't really understand why people are. I'm a young player, there's things I have to learn. That's the way it is. Sometimes it's not even that I made a mistake, sometimes it's the coach said he wanted to get the older players more ice time, get them going a little bit. Maybe there's other reasons for that. But it was definitely interesting. That game I didn't play too much and obviously I knew I had to kind of bounce back and have a good start and get ready right off the bat. I think the next game, the last pretournament game against Team Sweden, was a step in the right direction and obviously was big for our team as well.

Video: SWE@EUR: Draisaitl collects a hat trick in 6-2 win

You always put pressure on yourself. I'm a guy that I know what I'm capable of, and sometimes it doesn't go that way, that can be a little frustrating. That's something as a young player you have to kind of find that line, so I think that's something everyone went through or is going through.

When you score goals or when you play well, that always gives you confidence and that's no different with me. The 6-2 win against Team Sweden on Wednesday, aside from scoring the three goals, I think I played a pretty good game and that gives me confidence. But also as a team I think we played a really solid game against a very, very good team, and that gives the whole team a little bit of a boost going into the tournament.

It's fair, when we're called an underdog. And we know that. Like I said to the media, we have that underdog position, which is fine with us, really. But within the room, we know what we're capable of and I think that's the most important thing. We don't want to read too much into those pretournament games because Team Sweden was coming off a long flight. Even though you don't want to make up excuses, that's a part of it. But I think that gave us a lot of confidence because we really played a very good game over 60 minutes. Games like that, it gives you a boost. Hopefully we can keep that going into the opener Saturday.

I think we're all really excited to finally get going. Obviously there's a big buzz around this tournament, around the city of Toronto, especially. I think we're all very excited to get going Saturday. It'll be a great experience for all of us.