It’s not about defending a title, it’s all about seeking another gold medal for the Americans at the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship.
“We aren’t sitting back, we are going out and chasing it,” forward Ryan Leonard said. “We know we have a target, but we aren’t defending anything. We have a mentality of it’s ours to go take another gold medal.”
American goalie Trey Augustine compared it to climbing a mountain. The Americans reached the peak with their gold-medal victory in 2024 against Sweden, and this time it’s just another race to the summit.
“And we want to get there, win another gold,” Augustine said. “But it’s a new team, and we are ready for the challenge.”
While it’s a new roster, there are many familiar faces for Team USA.
Head coach David Carle is leading the staff again, seeking a second straight gold medal at the same time he’s seeking back-to-back NCAA titles with Denver. Meanwhile, 10 players from the 2024 team were back in camp earlier this week in Plymouth, Michigan, at USA Hockey Arena for 2025 including Augustine, Drew Fortescue, Leonard, Carey Terrance, Oliver Moore, Aram Minnetian, Danny Nelson, Zeev Buium, Sam Hillebrandt and Gabe Perreault.
On paper, the Americans are a deep team at all three position groups, but during camp, almost everyone pointed to goaltending as one of the foundations for the medal chase.
Augustine, who joked he was the “old man” in camp, will be playing in his third straight World Juniors and is the likely starter. Augustine has been one of the best goalies in college hockey the past two seasons, currently posting a .930 save percentage for Michigan State, and made his U.S. Men’s National Team debut this past spring at the IIHF World Championship.
Augustine is the calming force and has been that way for the U.S. at multiple tournaments, winning both World Junior and Under-18 gold medals in the past two years.
“He’s just so composed and calm, and he understands the game,” David Lassonde, USA Hockey’s national goaltending coach, said. “He reads the game so well; there’s so rarely a time or place where he isn’t in the right position.”
While Augustine is the presumptive starter, both Hillebrandt and Hampton Slukynsky will both likely get opportunities to earn some playing time in pre-tournament games. Slukynsky has been on a tear in the past 12 months, leading the Fargo Force to a USHL championship and is now dazzling in his freshman season at Western Michigan. Hillebrandt served as the third-string goalie for Team USA in 2024 and has had a solid season with the Barrie Colts.
Trey Augustine
Hampton Slukynsky
Sam Hillebrandt
In front of the goaltenders, the Americans are going to be a big, mobile group on the blue line. Fortescue and Buium both return after playing key roles in the 2024 gold-medal game, and Team USA also invited 17-year-old Blake Fiddler to camp, who captained the Under-18 team in August at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup.
Similar to the way Carle’s team plays at Denver, the American defenders are going to have the green light to be aggressive and join the play, which was a point of excitement, especially for the forwards who will have added layers on the rush.
Lines and pairings will be toyed with, but it seems highly likely that one line is already set up front with Leonard, Perreault and James Hagens. Leonard and Perrault played together with Will Smith for two years during their time with USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program, and then last season at Boston College. This season, with Smith now in the NHL, Hagenshas jumped into his spot. The potential top pick in the 2025 NHL Draft has pretty seamlessly joined a line Carle will likely use for Team USA.
“He’s got such great vision, you can see what everyone talks about, how he’s going to be [a] No. 1 center in the NHL someday,” Perreault said of Hagens. “He joined our line this season, and it’s really gone together really well.”
For Perreault and Leonard, it’s a tournament they’ll savor, because eventually, like Smith, they’ll be in the NHL soon.
“We’ve gone through a lot together, and that’s something you’ll think about at this tournament,” Leonard said.
Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perreault
Zeev Buium
Hagens and Cole Eiserman were late cuts from the 2024 roster, but both are expected to take larger offensive roles for this team, potentially finding some of their old NTDP chemistry on the power play where Hagens was the creator that often found space for Eiserman’s booming shot.
For the Americans, the tournament starts on Dec. 26 against Germany, with Group A games against Latvia and Finland before a big New Year’s Eve rivalry showdown with Canada to close out preliminary play. Fans can watch every Team USA game live on NHL Network.
The playoff round starts Jan. 2, with the gold-medal game on Jan. 5. That’s the date and goal the Americans are chasing for a second straight year.
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.
Source: usahockey.com