Don’t count out Czechia for World Junior gold

At the 2025 World Junior Championships in Ottawa, the likes of Canada, the U.S. and Sweden get most of the attention.

But with three wins in their first three games, Czechia is starting to get some well-deserved notice. With a goal differential of plus-18, the team looks as dominant as anyone in the tournament.

Both Hradec Vojtech and Stancl Jakub has four goals and three assists for seven points, while Mastalirsky Matej has three goals and two assists for five points.

Meanwhile, netminder Hrabal Michael has been lights out, posting a .943 save percentage and 1.50 goals against average in two appearances.

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk are joined by Daily Faceoff prospect analyst Steven Ellis to discuss the World Juniors, and whether Czechia can come away with a gold medal.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s quickly flip over to Group B, Steven. Czechia? 3-0 to start? Are they making you rethink your power rankings a little bit?

Steven Ellis: Group B is not a good group, let’s just be very clear about that. Switzerland is not a good team, Kazakhstan is a bit of a disaster out there. Czechia’s game against Slovakia, they took advantage of a Slovak team that seemed to be asleep. The big question is that game against Sweden. Right now, you look at the goal differential, the Czechs look really good because of that win against Kazakhstan.

I think Sweden is a slightly better team, but when it comes to the Czechs, it’s a group that a lot of these guys have been to the Hlinka finals in the last few years, they’ve had some good runs at the U-18s. They just need to put it together and make the scoring work.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…