ESPOO, Finland – The U.S. will battle Switzerland today in the quarterfinals of the IIHF Under-18 Men's World Championship, with opening faceoff set for 12 p.m. local/5 a.m. ET. The game can be seen live on NHL Network.

The winner advances to Saturday’s (May 4) semifinals. 

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.