Red Wings Prospects Star as USA Wins World Junior Gold

Last night in Ottawa, Team USA knocked off Finland in overtime to take the gold medal at the World Junior Championship for the second year running. Teddy Stiga (a Boston College forward and Nashville Predators draft pick) nabbed the game-winning goal off a perfectly placed stretch pass from Zeev Buium (of Denver University, a Minnesota Wild draft choice) to clinch the Americans’ first ever back-to-back golds at the WJC by a 4–3 final score.

While they didn’t have their fingerprints directly on the game-winner, it was a gold medal game littered with Detroit Red Wings prospects. Jesse Kiiskinen (whom Detroit acquired via trade in June) scored the opening goal of the evening on the power play, funneling down the slot before wiring home a wrist shot.

Finland built a 3–1 lead by the early second period, before 2024 Red Wings second round pick Max Plante helped set up a Brandon Svoboda with 2:22 left in the period. Cole Hutson would go on to tie the game seven seconds later.

After a scoreless third, Stiga found the winner eight minutes and four seconds into the extra session. To get to that point, all night and all tournament, 2023 Detroit second rounder Trey Augustine served as the Americans’ backstop in net. On Sunday night, that required 21 saves of the Michigan State Spartan, and, with the victory, Augustine—already the winningest American goaltender in tournament history—earned his third WJC medal, the first bronze and the second and third golden.

After the game, Augustine described feelings of “excitement” and “pure joy” to the NHL Network broadcast crew. “I think I’ve played on some pretty big stages, but never overtime in a gold medal game for the World Junior Championship, so just so proud of our group and our resiliency out there today,” he added. Both the individual stats and the track record of winning suggest the Red Wings have an outstanding goaltender of the future in Augustine.

Meanwhile, though Team Sweden fell to Czechia in a shootout in the preceding bronze medal game, 2023 Red Wings first rounder Axel Sandin-Pellikka (who scored a dazzling goal in the decisive shootout) was named the Directorate Top Defenseman of the tournament.

Suffice it to say it was a productive World Junior for the four Red Wing representatives.

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