Now that December is here and the holidays are approaching, it means that the IIHF World Junior Championship is also almost here.
Starting every late December, on Boxing Day, through about the first week of January the top under-twenty hockey players in the World compete for their countries in this prestigious tournament.
This edition of the tournament will be hosted by Hockey Canada in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Moncton, New Brunswick. The games will start on December 26 and the Gold Medal game will commence on January 5th at the Scotiabank Centre.
The Winnipeg Jets have had success at this tournament with some of their prospects competing each year and the 2023 edition of this tournament should be no different.
Two Winnipeg Jets prospects have been named on USA’s World Junior Championship preliminary roster.
USA Hockey revealed their WJC preliminary roster and both Chaz Lucius and Rutger McGrorarty have been named to it. Both of these players are former first round picks of the Winnipeg Jets.
Lucius was drafted by the Jets with the eighteenth overall pick in the 2021 draft. He then spent a season at the University of Minnesota before signing an entry-level contract with the Jets.
The nineteen-year-old has played this whole season in the AHL with the Manitoba Moose. He has two goals and three assists in 12 games.
McGrorarty was selected by Winnipeg with their fourteenth overall selection at this past summer’s draft. The eighteen-year-old now attends and plays for the University of Michigan.
The forward is currently having a great freshman collegiate season. McGrorarty is averaging a point per game as he has eight goals and ten assists through 18 games.
USA’s preliminary camp will take place from December 12 through the 17th in Michigan. There is a chance that we could see both Lucius and McGrorarty on a line throughout the preliminary camp and it will be interesting to see if both of these players will be named on USA’s final roster.
The USA’s final WJC roster should be revealed shortly after December 17.
Want your voice heard? Join the Jets White Out team!
The U.S. will be in Group B with Finland, Switzerland, Slovakia, and Lativa. The Americans will kick off their tournament, on the 26th against Latvia.
They will play each team in their group once and the top-four teams of each group will advance to the quarterfinals, where the tournament becomes single elimination through the Gold Medal Game.