Team USA is expected to add a goal-scoring punch to their roster for the 2026 IIHF World Championship. Top Vancouver Canucks winger Brock Boeser is expected to suit up for the Stars and Stripes in the summer tournament per Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK News.
Boeser notched 22 goals and 48 points in 75 games this season. The performance continued his downward turn after posting a career-high 40 goals and 73 points in 81 games of the 2023-24 season. Boeser earned All-Star recognition that season, an accolade that he hasn’t received since his rookie season in 2017-18. He followed the career year with just 25 goals and 50 points in 75 games last season.
This will be Boeser’s first chance to suit up for the USA’s men’s national team. He played in three international tournaments during his days in junior hockey, including captaining USA at the 2014 Hlinka Gretzky Cup. He scored eight points in five games at that tournament, then later notched five points in four games at the 2015 World Junior-A Challenge and three points in seven games at the 2016 World Junior Championships. Boeser has stood out as a shoot-first winger dating back to those international appearances and should bring a similar impact to USA’s middle-six at Worlds.
Other notes from around the league:
- Carolina Hurricanes forward Taylor Hall is not expected to receive supplemental discipline for his hit that injured Ottawa Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson, per hockey insider Frank Seravalli and TSN’s Bruce Garrioch. Senators head coach Travis Green criticized the decision, saying that the hit was blatantly high. Hall seemed to contact Sanderson’s head, and even knocked off his helmet, with a corner hit in the third period of Thursday night’s game. He was assessed a minor penalty on the play, while Sanderson left the game with 15 minutes to go. The star defenseman will now move forward with a questionable tag for the rest of the first round series. That will be a major absence with Ottawa at risk of being swept on Saturday. Sanderson is the only Senators defenseman to record a point this series. He has two assists.
- It seems the Buffalo Sabres could be without Joshua Norris for the foreseeable future. After being designated as out day-to-day, head coach Lindy Ruff shared that Norris is currently questionable to practice with the team. Norris sat out of Game 3 with an undisclosed injury. He has battled routine absence all season long and ultimately sat out of 38 games. Norris was a major part of the Sabres’ offense in his healthy stretches. He scored 34 points in 44 games and gave the team an extra motor in their top-six. Unfortunately, the Sabres will have to revert to their backup lineup with Norris again on the mend. His absence will be, in part, filled by rookie Noah Ostlund who scored two points in his Stanley Cup Playoffs debut in Thursday night’s win.