EDMONTON, Alberta – Team USA is set to start the first of its four preliminary round games of the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship tonight at Rogers Arena, matching up against Germany at 10:00 p.m. ET on NHL Network.

Team USA is looking for its seventh consecutive win over Germany at the tournament, most recently taking a 6-3 win in 2020. Trevor Zegras dished out four assists, while Shane Pinto collected three points including a goal in the matchup. Eleven different U.S. players picked up points, and Dustin Wolf stopped 17 of 20 shots.

Team USA is the defending gold medalist, something that occurred 580 days ago, and return four players, along with five of the six coaches, from that gold-medal run. Captain Brock Faber (Maple Grove, Minn.), alternate captain Landon Slaggert (South Bend, Ind.), forward Brett Berard (East Greenwich, R.I.) and defenseman Tyler Kleven (Fargo, N.D.) were all part of the gold medal-winning squad.

Head coach Nate Leaman returns and brought back assistant coaches Steve Miller and Kris Mayotte, along with video coach Theresa Feaster. Grant Potulny, assistant coach for Team USA, was on the 2017 National Junior Team that took home gold.

Among the 25 players on the roster, 17 are returnees from the original roster from December before the tournament was shut down due to COVID, including one goaltender, six defensemen and 10 forwards.

Today’s Opponent: Germany

The U.S. National Junior Team has an 11-0-1-0-0 series record against Germany in the IIHF World Junior Championship. The teams first squared off in 1991 where the U.S. went on to rattle off five-straight tournament wins against Germany, before Team USA fell in overtime in 2006. The U.S. has outscored Germany 71-17, which includes four occasions that Team USA scored eight goals, along with five shutouts.