3 things learned at Day 1 of United States World Juniors selection camp | NHL.com

PLYMOUTH, Mich. — The United States National Junior Team has a new mantra entering selection camp this week for the 29 players invited for possible inclusion at the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship.

“We had this quote in one of our meetings, ‘We’re not looking to defend, we’re chasing another one,'” forward Carey Terrance (Anaheim Ducks) told NHL.com on the opening day of camp at USA Hockey Arena.

The United States knows there’s an opportunity to win a second straight championship at World Juniors for the first time in the country’s history, which includes six tournament titles and two in the past four years. The 2025 World Juniors will be held in Ottawa from Dec. 26 through Jan. 5.

“On Sunday night, [we] went over our objectives for camp and were led through an exercise as well by an outside group to get the players to kind of open up and talking and sharing with one another,” returning coach David Carle said. “It kind of set the tone for what we want the week to be and in building our foundation for the event.”

Though the United States is not hiding from their chance to celebrate back-to-back titles for the first time, it isn’t the primary focus at camp.

“I think everything worked last year, and our challenge is not to talk about that or think about that because this is a completely different group,” Carle said. “We have a lot of new people that we’re trying to evaluate and piece together, and this year’s team won’t be last year’s team. We’re going to have to do things a different way and I think that’s our challenge … creating a new identity around this year’s group and finding out the strengths and how we need to play.

“The key to this event is peaking for those last three games and I think we found a way to do that last year. You want to be playing your best at the most important time and use every moment of time that you have to grow and learn and to build that identity, I think that’s our plan, and that’s what we’ll do.”

It’s part of what Carle knows is vital to finalizing the roster, which is expected to be announced by Dec. 23.

Here are three other things learned at select camp Monday: