The USA started the 2026 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 World Championship with an overtime loss to Czechia but has since won three games in a row and, following an 11-2 win over Germany, finishes first in Group B. In their last two games, the Americans outscored Sweden and Germany by a combined score of 20-3.
“We knew the stakes coming in,” said U.S. captain Casey Mutryn. “We knew that first place was up for grabs and, for them, we knew they were going to be a motivated group because they didn’t want to play in the relegation game. Our mindset was the same as every other game that we go into, and then just took care of business today.”
The Germans had a chance to advance to the quarter-finals with a win, but found themselves down 2-0 by the time the game was barely two minutes old. They will face Norway in the game to decide relegation on Wednesday.
“We knew the U.S. was a tough opponent and we would try to do our best, so we needed to have a good start but we failed at that,” said German forward Tobias Krestan.
Jamie Glance had a goal and three assists for the Americans, with Wyatt Cullen, Mikey Berchild and Lukas Zajic recording three points each. The USA outshot Germany 53-26 in the game, with Luke Carrithers making 24 stops.
Glance opened the scoring at 1:25, picking the corner high blocker-side on German starting goaltender Max Bolle. Just 44 seconds later, the U.S. was on the power play when Glance found Wyatt Cullen alone at the side of the net for the tap-in goal.
“First shift, the guy was going for a change there and the puck bounced to me, I kinda found my way through the slot and just ripped it home,” Glance described. “The other one, a little bit of luck involved there, where I just kinda sent it on the back door on the power play on an entry and, yeah, (Cullen) put it off the post and it bounced off the goalie and went in.”
Germany showed some signs of life on the power play and got on the board just shy of the 10-minute mark when Krestan, the overtime hero of the team’s win over Czechia, took a shot from the top of the circle that found the top corner with Lukas Steinhauser providing a screen in front.
“It was on the power play and it was a really big goal for us,” said Krestan. “We tried to take momentum from that.”
But it took less than a minute for the Americans to restore their two-goal advantage on a sharp-angle shot from Berchild, and they’d add three more after that before the opening period was out.
“Having a big lead after the first, coming out for the second was important and I think we did a good job of that to put the game out of reach,” said Mutryn.
With the score already 4-1 at 13:03, Bolle, Germany’s other hero from Saturday’s game, was lifted after allowing five goals on 18 shots. Niclas Wolter stopped 29 of 35 shots the rest of the way.
With the score 10-1 with 13:14 remaining in the third period, the German power play struck for the second time. Carrithers stopped Darian Rolsing’s shot from the point, but Luis Becker was in position to put in the rebound.
With 4:05 to play, Zajic rounded out the scoring with his hat-trick goal.
On the upcoming quarter-finals, Mutryn said, “We prepare for every game the same and now, obviously, it’s win or go home, so there’s no time to take it easy or not do your best, so we’re going to be really motivated going into that game, no matter who we play.”
“We haven’t really talked about it much – we had our full focus on these games here,” Krestan said about the relegation game. “But we’ve gotta learn something from these games now, keep the team focused and prepare for that game.”
