The Washington Capitals will be well represented at the 2026 World Junior Championship, as two more of the team’s prospects were announced to be joining their nation’s rosters.
Milton Gastrin, the team’s second-round pick in the 2o25 NHL Draft, was named to Sweden’s roster for the tournament earlier this month. Gastrin, 18, signed his three-year, entry-level contract with the Capitals this past July and is playing the 2025-26 season in the second tier of Swedish pro hockey, the HockeyAllsvenskan, with MoDo Hockey.
In 25 games for Modo, Gastrin has recorded 17 points (8g, 9a). He is the league’s highest-scoring under-19 forward. The Ornskoldsvik, Sweden native was the captain of Team Sweden at last year’s Under-18 World Junior Championship, notching 10 points (3g, 7a) in seven games en route to a silver medal.
Leon Muggli, one of the Capitals’ second-round picks from the 2024 NHL Draft, was named to Switzerland’s roster for the tournament. Muggli, 19, played two games for the AHL’s Hershey Bears this season, recording one assist, before suffering an upper-body injury.
The Capitals signed Muggli to a three-year, entry-level contract after he attended his first development camp in 2024. Muggli will be participating in his third World Junior Championship for Switzerland, having served as an alternate captain at the 2025 tournament. In nine total World Juniors games, he has recorded four assists.
Hershey announced that the young defenseman had been re-assigned to his national team on Monday afternoon. Muggli has been a healthy scratch for the past two Bears games after missing almost the entirety of the fall schedule with his injury.
Gastrin and Muggli will join fellow Capitals prospects Cole Hutson (USA), Nick Kempf (USA), Petr Sikora (Czechia), and Maxim Schafer (Germany) at the tournament in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.
The first game is set for December 26, and the gold medal game is scheduled for January 5.