The coaching staff tinkered with the forward lines following Sunday night's practice, looking for the magic combination of players that compliment each other.

Many players here have experience playing together dating back a year or two when they were at USA Hockey¹s National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Other groupings showed potential as recently as the U.S. National Junior Evaluation Camp this past August. And other trios or pairs are simply based on coaches' intuition.

With 17 forwards in camp, the coaching staff has a bit of a math problem. Thus far there have been three lines of three and two lines of four­ rotating a player in and out during drills.

Monday morning's lineup was as follows:
Nic Kerdiles-Dan O'Regan-Riley Barber
Adam Erne-Jack Eichel-Ryan Hartman
Stefan Matteau-Andrew Copp-Hudson Fasching
Ryan Fitzgerald-Quentin Shore-JT Compher-Tyler Motte
Tommy-DiPauli-Zach Stepan-Vince Hinostroza-Henrik Samuelsson

Special Teams Take Center Stage

Coaches will focus on special teams during the afternoon practice. Success on the power play and penalty kill is a strong barometer for success at the IIHF World Junior Championship. En route to the gold medal in 2013, Team USA led the tournament in power-play goals (12) and penalty kill percentage (89.3).

Free Tickets for Youth Hockey Players

Area youth hockey players have a chance to watch Tuesday's exhibition game between the U.S. National Junior Team and the MSU Mavericks for free. For more information and to print out the ticket coupon, click here.