The United States’ centralized U18 national team succeeded at the Five Nations Tournament in Sundsvall. After three regulation-time wins against Finland (8-1), the Czech Republic (3-1) and Russia (5-3) the Americans played host Sweden for tournament win on the last day.

The Swedish juniors were also without a loss and provided a tough challenge in front of 1,398 fans. Marcus Sylvegard tied up an American lead after a Nate Knoepke goal for the 1-1 score after the first period. The Americans improved and made it a 3-1 lead with goals from Quinn Hughes and Brady Tkachuk but the Swedes came back. Jacob Peterson cut the deficit before the next intermission. The Americans ran into penalty trouble early in the third and with two men more on the ice Erik Brannstrom tied the game and Lucas Elvenes gave the home team a 4-3 lead. But the Americans fought back. Josh Norris tied the game with a shorthanded goal with three seconds left in regulation time and it was him who also scored the game-winner in the sixth shootout round.

Norris led the tournament in scoring with three goals and seven points followed by three teammates – Grant Mismash (3+3), Hughes (3+3) and Evan Barratt (1+5) – and the top goals scorer of the event, Czech forward Filip Zadina (4+1). Of the goalies with at least two games Sweden’s Adam Ahman reached the best numbers with a 95.74 save percentage followed by Czech Jiri Patera (94.34) and Finland’s Lassi Lehtinen (94.03).

U18 Worlds host Slovakia also played host to the annual Vlado Dzurilla Tournament in Piestany and won it. After blanking Belarus 5-0 on the opening day it became more difficult in the other games. The Slovaks beat Switzerland 2-1 thanks to Jozef Balaz’s game-winner with 4:39 left to play and in the last game they beat Germany by the same score thanks to second-period goals from Filip Krivosik and Adam Liska.

Germany’s Dominik Bokk was named Best Forward and led the tournament in scoring with two goals and four points followed by his teammate Mike Fisher and Krivosik with three points (2+1). Slovakia’s Daniel Pavlicko was named Best Goaltender and Switzerland’s Tim Berni Best Defenceman.

Latvia, which will also compete in the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 World Championship in Slovakia, won against the Division I competition in the Four Nations Tournament in Denmark. Already after two days and two wins against Denmark (4-2) and Norway (5-3) the Latvians were known as tournament winner. The 2-0 loss against Austria on the last day didn’t change that. Host Denmark finished in second place with a 2-1 record.

Hungary won a Four Nations Tournament on home ice in Budapest. In the tournament-clinching game against France Mark Almasi scored the game-winning goal for the home team. Slovenia and Italy finished in third and fourth place respectively.