Team USA won Group A, earning victories in all four preliminary round contests, including a 9-4 win over Finland in its last outing on Tuesday (April 30) evening.
Switzerland finished fourth in Group B with a 1-0-1-2 (W-OTW-OTL-L) record, earning a 5-2 win over Kazakhstan in their second prelim game.
WHAT TO KNOW
- Team USA is the tournament’s top-scoring team, averaging 8.25 goals per game without scoring double-digit goals in a game. They have put up nine, eight, seven and goals respectively in their four games. Switzerland’s eight goals scored in the preliminary-round was tied for the least of any team.
- U.S. forward James Hagens leads the tournament in points. He has produced a whopping 16 points (7-9–16) in four games. The all-time single-tournament record is 21 points, set by Nikita Kucherov in 2011.
- In addition to Hagens, Teddy Stiga (5-5–10), Cole Eiserman (6-3–9), Trevor Connelly (4-4–8), Cole Hutson (2-6–8) and Brodie Ziemer (1-7–8) are all in the top-6 (tied) scorers of the tournament.
- The U.S. and Switzerland have met on 11 previous occasions in U18 Championship history. Team USA has won 10 of those 11, including the only quarterfinal tilt by a 4-2 margin in 2017.
- Team USA is the top overall seed in the tournament. Teams are re-seeded after each round of competition which means if Team USA advances, it will play the lowest remaining seed in the semifinals at either 2:00 p.m. local/7:00 a.m. ET or 6:00 p.m. local/11:00 a.m. ET on Saturday. The top four seeds are USA-1, Canada-2, Finland-3, Czechia-4.
- Team USA is 13-2 in the quarterfinals all-time, having lost just once in the past 20 years. In last year’s tournament, Team USA earned a 4-1 win over Czechia in the quarterfinals.
