Team USA Defeats Latvia in 5-1 World Juniors Win

OTTAWA, Canada — The United States improved to 2-0 in Group A play after a 5-1 win, while Latvia dropped to 1-1 a day after stunning Canada with a 3-2 victory in a shootout.

Latvia has lost all seven of its WJC games against the United States dating to 2010, including four preliminary-round losses by a combined 28-5. In the only other game of the day, Czechia beat Kazakhstan 14-2 at TD Place. Czechia and Sweden are both 2-0 in Group B.

U.S. coach David Carle said the matchup went as expected for the present and future men of USA Hockey.

"It was what we expected," Carle said. "They defend inside ice really well and I thought we showed some growth in some of our puck-management decisions in trying to get to the inside, and get more pucks there. So there's some growth in our game. Was it perfect? No. But a lot of compliments to Latvia and how hard they played."

Rangers prospect Gabe Perreault was previously named the Player of the Game following the United States' 10-4 victory over Germany at the World Junior Championship on Thursday in U.S.'s first game. Drew Fortescue also joined the other future Blueshirt on the U.S. roster — playing 18:48 and was plus-3, helping the U.S. defeat Germany for the 14th time in their past 15 meetings at the WJC in USA's first game.

A fun note for the young boys of USA is that it's an annual right a passage by each of the 10 participating countries to choose a goal song that gets fans and the team going whenever a goal is scored. The U.S. used “The Boys Are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzy as the goal song on the way to a gold medal-winning effort at the 2024 WJC. This year the team is tusing ‘Free Bird’ to get players, fans excited after scores throughout tournament

Next Games in the World Juniors

Czechia plays Slovakia on Sunday (5 p.m. ET). Kazakhstan faces Slovakia on Monday (1 p.m. ET).