The United States of Hockey

Earlier today, we took a look at the goaltenders and defenseman named to the U.S. National Junior Team’s preliminary roster. Now it’s time to look at each of the 17 forwards.

Goaltending and the top-six forwards are the biggest strengths for Team USA.  Then there’s terrific depth at the forward position as well. Plenty of players have been brought in to fill roles, which is exactly what you want for a team in a tournament like this. You need elite offensive guys at the top and guys that will out-work other teams at the bottom. What USA Hockey has put together for Dean Blais has all of that.

So let’s waste no more time and get an in-depth look at each of the forwards coming into camp for the U.S. National Junior Team.

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Monday evening, the U.S. National Junior Team picture began to take shape when USA Hockey unveiled its 29-player preliminary roster. Those 29 Americans will compete for 22 roster spots in Team USA’s pre-tournament camp in Camrose, Alberta, Dec. 17-23.

The final roster will be announced Dec. 22 and there’s bound to be a few entertaining battles to get there. The best thing about the pre-tournament camp is getting the compete level raised before the puck is dropped against Denmark on Dec. 26. Sometimes that fear of getting cut motivates players to rise to the occasion.

We’ll talk more about the camp itself soon, but first, it’s time to break down this 29-player roster. We kick it off this morning with the two goaltenders and 10 defensemen USA Hockey has invited to camp.

Check it out after the jump…

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Well, the preliminary roster for the U.S. National Junior Team has been announced. There are plenty of intriguing names on it. Many expected, several not, and that’s what makes it fun. The picture begins to become more clear what the U.S. outfit will look like in Alberta come December 26.

Before we get into the specifics about players, here are a few things that we learned in general about Team USA…

This will be an old team. Of the 29 players invited, 24 are 1992 birth years. There are three 1993s and two 1994s. There are no 1993-born players on the U.S. blue line, though both 1994s are defensemen.

This will be a fast team. We knew that going in, but looking at the forward line up, there’s a bunch of good skaters.

Size doesn’t matter for forwards. There are eight forwards under six-feet tall, four of which are 5-foot-8 or shorter.

Size matters on D. Team USA’s blue line will be big. Eight of the ten defensemen listed are 6-foot-2 or taller, five of which are 6-foot-4 or taller.

Now, coming up after the jump, a quick reaction to some of the players on the roster.

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***Got a specific question about Team USA, one of the candidates or the World Juniors in general? All day today (Dec. 5), I’ll be answering your questions on Twitter. So make sure to tweet your questions to @chrismpeters and I’ll retweet with an answer. Remember, there are no dumb questions, I don’t think…***

At 5:30 p.m. EST, on NHL Network, the U.S. National Junior Team preliminary roster will be unveiled on NHL Live. In  each of the last two years, 29 players have been named to this preliminary roster. The 29 (or so) players named tonight will be competing for 22 available spots on the final U.S. National Junior Team roster, which will be announced Dec. 22.

When that list is unveiled tonight, we won’t know what the final group will be, but the picture will become much more clear. We won’t know everything when the roster is initially announced tonight, but we should be able to at least piece together a few things.

Coming up after the jump, a look at what we’ll learn about Team USA when the preliminary roster is unveiled tonight….

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