Canadian Surge: How Canada Can Upset Team USA At The World Juniors And Potentially Repeat Next Year

On paper, the favorite for this year’s World Junior Championship is Team USA, just as it was last year, when we predicted in our 2024 World Juniors Preview issue that the Americans would triumph in Gothenburg. But as much as national programs would hope that success springs eternal, it’s just a fact of life that these things move in cycles.

The days of Canada winning five tournaments in a row (or the Soviet Union winning four straight back in the WJC’s infancy) are gone. In fact, Canada’s back-to-back wins in 2022 and ’23 marked the first repeat by any team since the dominant Canadian stretch from 2005 to 2009.

Even if we do see Team USA win gold this year, the chances of a three-peat in 2026 look remote. Not only will the Americans be losing some of their best players – Ryan Leonard, Gabe Perreault, Zeev Buium and Trey Augustine being the most crucial – due to age, but it’s altogether possible 2006-born James Hagens could go straight to the NHL next fall and therefore be unavailable.

It’s also worth noting that the U.S. didn’t win the world under-18s earlier this year, something that is incredibly important to USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program, which uses the tournament as a final championship opportunity for the NTDP kids, most of whom have spent the past two years thinking about that trophy.

Team USA got to the gold-medal game for the seventh time in the past 10 world U-18 tournaments, but they lost to Canada in a come-from-behind shocker. And keep in mind, Canada didn’t have its full player pool to draw from since the world under-18s take place during the major-junior playoffs.

Also of note was this year’s World Under-17 Challenge, which took place in Sarnia. Canada had two teams in the tournament, splitting their talent pool up again. Team USA sent the NTDP’s U-17s as per usual, and the field was rounded out by national sides from Finland, Sweden and Czechia. The result? Canada White beat Canada Red in the gold-medal game. Yes, it was an all-Canuck final, with Sweden clinching bronze on an overtime goal against the U.S.

At this point, it might feel like I’m beating up on the Americans, and that’s certainly not my intent. In fact, what I’m trying to get at here is that Canada – a country whose second-favorite sport after hockey is worrying about hockey – has the chance to absolutely dominate the world juniors in the coming years. Again, the upcoming WJC in Ottawa still looks like an American victory on paper, but the tide could turn next year, when the tournament will be held Stateside in Minnesota. Because the phenoms are coming.

As I mentioned in the Team Canada preview on pg. 48, draft-eligible players such as Porter Martone, Michael Misa and Malcolm Spence have a shot at making this year’s team, as does 2026 top prospect Gavin McKenna. Regardless, though, at least a couple of them will be on the team in Minnesota, and McKenna, the youngest of the bunch, also happens to be the best. Despite the fact he doesn’t turn 17 until Dec. 20, McKenna has been the top scorer in the WHL so far, averaging two points a game. Simply put, he’s a devastatingly smart and skilled left winger. Oh, and that Canadian comeback win at the world under-18s? It was McKenna doing most of the damage – with a hat trick and an assist in the 6-4 victory.

And if Canada really wants to push their phenoms forward, we could see Landon DuPont, who just got exceptional status to play in the WHL this season, on the blueline. DuPont is an incredible defenseman who is already putting up more than a point per game for the Everett Silvertips. He’s looking like the real deal at 15.

But we’re also going to get a sneak peek at the North American rivalry thanks to the new CHL-USA Prospects Challenge, which kicked off this year (and will run for at least three years) with games in London and Oshawa. The series pits the best draft-eligibles from major junior – such as Martone, Misa and Spence – against the NTDP’s U-18 squad. The games took place when we were closing this issue, so I can’t say what happened. But I’ll prognosticate here that the results could be very informative as to the comparative strength of that age bracket between the two North American rivals. The battle for continental supremacy isn’t cooling down anytime soon.

This article appeared in the Nov. 25, 2024, World Junior Championship issue of The Hockey News. In this edition, we feature wall-to-wall coverage of the 2025 World Junior Championship, complete with previews of all 10 teams plus some of the most prominent players involved. Also in this issue, we shine the spotlight on San Jose's Tyler Toffoli, Philadelphia's Travis Konecny and a team from Haida Gwaii that really goes the extra mile.

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