The World Junior Hockey Championship is one of the best times of the year. We get the opportunity to watch some of the best young talent from around the world play hockey on a daily basis and they always make it entertaining.
Another World Junior Hockey Championship concludes on Thursday night in Montreal with Team Canada and USA set to battle for the gold medal, so we take a look back at the best rosters to represent each country in the tournament.
USA has won the gold medal at the World Juniors three times, with the latest one coming back at the 2013 tournament in Russia. Despite finishing with just six points through four preliminary games, the Americans looked like a different team in the elimination rounds as they went on to beat Czech Republic 7-0, Canada 5-1 and Sweden 3-1 in the gold medal game.
The team had 13 players who are now playing in the NHL on a nightly basis, and it’s a pretty impressive list.
Forwards
Cole Bardreau
Riley Barber
Tyler Biggs
Alex Galchenyuk
Johnny Gaudreau
Rocco Grimaldi
Ryan Hartman
Sean Kuraly
Mario Lucia
J.T. Miller
Blake Pietila
Vincent Trocheck
Jimmy Vesey
Defencemen
Shayne Gostisbehere
Seth Jones
Jake McCabe
Connor Murphy
Mike Reilly
Patrick Sieloff
Jacob Trouba
Goalies
John Gibson
Jon Gillies
Garret Sparks
For Team Canada we head back to the 2005 tournament in North Dakota. Just about every player on this roster had NHL experience at one point or another, and many of them have stolen the show on a nightly basis for their respective NHL squads.
Forwards
Patrice Bergeron
Jeff Carter
Jeremy Colliton
Sidney Crosby
Nigel Dawes
Stephen Dixon
Colin Fraser
Ryan Getzlaf
Andrew Ladd
Clarke MacArthur
Corey Perry
Mike Richards
Anthony Stewart
Defencemen
Cam Barker
Shawn Belle
Braydon Coburn
Dion Phaneuf
Brent Seabrook
Danny Syvret
Shea Weber
Goaltenders
Rejean Beauchemin
Jeff Glass
Both the Canadian and American squads at this year’s tournament are certainly some of the best groups to represent their country in the history of the tournament, but only time will tell who will come out on top as this year’s champion.
