Team USA skated to a 6-5 comeback victory over Slovakia in the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships on Monday to remain undefeated in the tournament.<\/p>\n
Despite being thinned by injuries, the team made a comeback and set up a high-stakes New Year\u2019s Eve battle against Sweden for the top seed.<\/p>\n
The victory brings a surge of momentum to St. Paul as the team prepares for what should be an electric holiday atmosphere. It’s a matchup Team USA coach, and head coach of the Golden Gophers, Bob Motzko says he’s thrilled to be apart of.<\/p>\n
“I think it could be great. I mean, I really do,” Motzko said. “I’ve been in this building. When it, the old tournament that used to be in here. And Frozen Fours that have been in here. The state, there’s going to be some juice in this building for sure.”<\/p>\n
The United States matched Sweden at 3-0 in Group A play ahead of their New Year\u2019s Eve showdown. In the early game, Sweden had four power-play goals in an 8-1 romp over Germany.<\/p>\n
Motzko praised the group’s growth under pressure, noting that while the team “scored their way out” of defensive lapses, they are now shifting focus to the winner-takes-all battle with Sweden.<\/p>\n
“I love the resiliency of, you know, we’re down bodies, and now we’re, I mean, I don’t know how many minutes Chase Reed got tonight, but I can tell you there are much more than if we wouldn’t have had the injuries,” he says. “And that’s what you have to have in this tournament.”<\/p>\n
In Group B at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Penn State star Gavin McKenna had a hat trick as Canada took the pool lead with a 9-1 victory over Denmark.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something you dream of as a kid,\u201d Mckenna said. \u201cFelt pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Porter Marton had two goals and an assist, and Zayne Parekh, Michael Misa and Kashawn Aitcheson each had a goal and an assist. Parekh has played 11 games for the Calgary Flames this season.<\/p>\n
In the early Group B game, Adam Jiricek scored at 3:39 of overtime to give Czechia a 2-1 victory over Finland. Emil Hemming tied it for Finland with 19.3 seconds left in regulation.<\/p>\n
Caleb Heil backstopped the U.S. in goal, making 26 saves. He’s from Victoria, Minnesota, and plays for Madison in the USHL. Fellow Minnesotans Brendan McMorrow and Will Zellers scored. McMorrow is from Lakeville and plays at Denver. Zellers, from Maple Grove, plays for North Dakota.<\/p>\n
Lee Ryker of Michigan State and AJ Spellacy of Windsor of the OHL added goals. The U.S. played without defenseman Cole Hutson. The Boston University star was injured when he was struck in the back of the head by a shot in a victory over Switzerland on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s like lightning in a bottle,\u201c McMorrow said. \u201cHe can make something out of nothing, and in a game like that, too, we could have used him. But you know, we\u2019re battling through it and hopefully we\u2019ll get him back soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tomas Chrenko scored twice for Slovakia.<\/p>\n
Opening faceoff for USA-Sweden is set for 5:00 p.m. at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul, and the game will be televised live on NHL Network. Tickets for the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship are on sale and can be purchased\u00a0<\/strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Team USA skated to a 6-5 comeback victory over Slovakia in the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-662769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115809331584701237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}