From Gold to the NHL: USA’s 2024 world junior team could be one of its best ever

Credit: Steven Ellis/Daily Faceoff

It’s never easy to live up to high expectations. Few programs know that more than USA Hockey.

The United States enters the World Junior Championship each year as one of the best teams on paper. That’s primarily due to the success of the USA Hockey National Team Development Program, which pumps out high-quality talent each year. Even the Hlinka Gretzky and World Junior A Challenge rosters continue to get more profound each year.

Despite that, we’re looking at a team that entered the 2024 showing with just two golds in a decade. Expectations be damned, it just sometimes doesn’t work out. Seriously, the 2018 team had Brady Tkachuk, Josh Norris, Casey Mittelstadt, Quinn Hughes, Adam Fox, Jake Oettinger, Jeremy Swayman, and Joseph Woll, and they only finished third.

But from the minute the 2023 event ended in Halifax, all eyes shifted toward the Americans being above and beyond everyone else for 2024. And they delivered, winning every game en route to a championship in Sweden this week.

USA trailed twice in Sweden, including for an entire period against the Czechs. But there wasn’t a single game – pre-tournament or the real thing – where they didn’t completely outplay their opponents for at least most of it. They beat Canada and Sweden in exhibition play. They suffocated the Swiss. They obliterated a previously unbeaten Slovak team to win the group. Even when trailing against the Czechs, the Americans looked in control. And then it was never in doubt against the Swedes in the gold medal game, capping off a perfect tournament.

I’d reckon this is a team hockey fans will remember for quite a long time with significant long-term positive consequences. Perhaps a group with the potential to have one of the best NHL representations the country has ever seen.

The United States has one of the deepest talent pools in the world right now. If you pit the best Americans and Canadians against each other for an Olympic gold right now, I’d have a hard time betting against USA. They’ve got the goaltending advantage. Defense, too.

Sure, Canada might have Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, and Connor Bedard. But the United States has Jack Hughes, Auston Matthews, Matthew Tkachuk and Jason Robertson. And that’s only just scratching the surface. Every single one of those players has played in the world juniors at some point.

And here’s what this talent pool is getting: two of the top goaltending prospects in the world in Trey Augustine and Jacob Fowler; two high-end offensive defensemen in Lane Hutson and Seamus Casey; two of the best young centers in the game in Cutter Gauthier and Will Smith; and wingers with top-six potential such as Gabe Perreault, Jimmy Snuggerud, Rutger McGroarty and Ryan Leonard.

And that doesn’t include Frank Nazar, Isaac Howard, Gavin Brindley, Oliver Moore or top 2024 NHL Draft defenseman Zeev Buium. This group is brimming with future NHL stars representing a wide range of teams. And I fully expect a few of them – Gauthier and Smith, especially – to factor into future World Cup of Hockey and Olympic conversations.

Gauthier earned some MVP votes. Howard finished tied for first in tournament goal-scoring. The Smith-Perreault-Leonard line was unstoppable. One of USA’s top scorers, Jimmy Snuggerud, finished the tournament on the fourth line. This team was as deep as it gets.

The estimate above is without USHL's best players to add insult to injury

The US Development team I treat fully separately, and has been consistently getting better for nearly a decade.

The NTDP is the quickest-rising "league" in terms of quality in the entire world rn pic.twitter.com/4kvPUbRMcD

— Chace McCallum (@CMhockey66) January 5, 2024

It’s easy to get lost in the recency bias, but there’s an excellent chance that we’ll talk about this being the best American roster we’ve ever seen a decade from now. This tournament was an afterthought for Americans, back when it was nice to see them compete with Canada. Now, they’re the juggernauts every team wants a piece of.

USA’s use of its National Team Development Program gives the team some familiarity across the board. A total of 17 players played with the USNTDP at some point, with just about every player wearing the red, white, and blue at some point in their careers. This team is so deep that they cut top 2025 prospect James Hagens from the final roster and didn’t even invite top 2024 draft scorer Cole Eiserman to camp.

Having 10 first-rounders helps, too.

The Americans have a well-established base designed for success. It never seems to translate to the men’s World Championship, but they’re building towards one of the best programs once NHL participation resumes in best-on-best competition. So many of the USA’s top players in the NHL are 26 and under, thanks to years of success at various junior-level tournaments.

They haven’t had a chance to show their full strength yet, but it’s coming. American hockey is on the rise, and, hopefully, they won’t have to wait long for the next chance to show it on the world stage. Hockey fans from the United States deserve to see their best NHLers playing on the global stage.

Book it. Ten years from now, we’re going to be looking back at this year’s squad as being one of the best USA has iced at the World Junior Championship.

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From Gold to the NHL: USA’s 2024 world junior team could be one of its best ever

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