It’s a fairly quiet week for USA Hockey's National Team Development Program. The U.S. National Under-18 Team will play a home-and-road United States Hockey League series while the U.S. National Under-17 squad enjoys a bye weekend.

TWO-GAME USHL SPLIT: After sweeping a two-game road series at Indiana over the weekend, the U18s will host the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders at 7 p.m. on Thursday (March 14) at the Ann Arbor (Mich.) Ice Cube. The team then heads out on the road on Friday (March 15) to face the Muskegon Lumberjacks.

“We have two tough opponents with two different styles of play coming up this week,” U18 head coach Don Granato said. “We will continue to work on our systems and work on playing a full 60 minutes of each game. We have seven games left before heading to the U18 World Championships, and we want to be playing strongly the next few games.”

An Anthony Louis (Winfield, Ill.) hat trick propelled the U18s to a 5-2 win over Indiana Friday (March 8). Tyler Motte (St. Clair, Mich.) and John Hayden (Greenwich, Conn.) scored the other goals while Thatcher Demko (San Diego, Calif.) kicked out 25 shots to earn the win between the pipes.

In game two, the U18s posted an 8-5 win over Indiana on Saturday (March 9). Michael McCarron (Macomb, Mich.), J.T. Compher (Northbrook, Ill.) and Hayden each tallied two goals apiece while Louis and Dawson Cook (Cadillac, Mich.) provided single tallies in the win. Blake Weyrick (Ojai, Calif.) and Demko combined for 15 saves.

“Anytime you pick up two road wins that is a positive for the team,” Granato said. “We still need to work on tightening up on the defensive side, but overall it was a fairly positive weekend for our squad.”

A WELCOME BREAK: After dropping a pair of USHL games to the Green Bay Gamblers over the weekend, the U17s will enjoy a bye this weekend before returning to the ice on March 23, at Chicago.

“What we started last week was going back to some basics and working from there out, and I thought we did a lot of those things real well,” U17 head coach Danton Cole said. “We are going to work on pace of play. We will probably go shorter and try to go faster in our practices [this week]. That seemed to pay off a little bit, and we have to outskate teams and be better conditioned. We will be working on that the next two weeks.”

The U17s dropped a pair of games to the Gamblers over the weekend, falling 4-2 on Friday (March 8) and 2-1 on Saturday (March 9). Jared Fiegl (Parker, Colo.) and Ryan MacInnis (St. Louis, Mo.) registered goals in game one while Edwin Minney (Wind Gap, Pa.) stopped 42 of 45 shots in the loss. In game two, Fiegl scored and Hunter Miska (North Branch, Minn.) finished with 24 saves.

“Green Bay is one of the top-five teams in the USHL, and we played two really close games with them,” Cole said. “The times we let them off the hook, I don’t think we were playing poorly. Mentally, we had some lapses and it continues to be that hump we have to get over. This is a cruel league in that sense for us. It punishes us when we make mistakes. We will continue to learn. Hopefully, that is the big lesson for us that we need to continue to learn and understand where we are at and where we are going.”

NOTEBOOK:
• Former NTDP forward Cameron Darcy (South Boston, Mass./2010-12) now suits up for the Muskegon Lumberjacks.

• Team USA carries a combined 15-27-5 (W-L-OTL) record in USHL action.

• Heading into this week, the U18s hold a 32-13-3-4 (W-L-OTL-T) record.

• Tyler Kelleher (Longmeadow, Mass./24-24) leads the U18s with 48 points in 52 games. Anthony Louis (21-19) is second with 40 points while Evan Allen (Sterling Heights, Mich./18-21) ranks third with 39 points. J.T. Compher (12-24) holds down the No. 4 spot with 36 points while Tyler Motte (18-12) is fifth with 30 points.

• In goal for the U18s, Thatcher Demko is 21-6-0-3 with a 2.11 goals-against average and a .911 save percentage. In four games for the U18s, Blake Weyrick is 1-1 with a 2.90 GAA and an .873 save percentage.

• The U17s bring a 15-29-4 (W-L-OTL) record into this week, including a 2-18 mark in games decided by two goals or less.

• Sonny Milano (Massapequa, N.Y./17-24) paces the U17s with 41 points. Jack Eichel (North Chelmsford, Mass./19-15), who is currently playing for the U18s, is second with 34 points while Chris Wilkie (Omaha, Neb./12-16) ranks third with 28 points. Ryan Hitchcock (11-17) ranks fourth with 27 points; Dylan Larkin (Waterford, Mich./11-14) is fifth with 25 points and Ryan MacInnis (15-9) is sixth with 24 points.

• In goal for the U17s, Edwin Minney is 8-18-3 with a 4.15 GAA and an .876 save percentage. In four games with the U17s, Hunter Miska is 0-4-0 with a 3.78 GAA and an .873 save percentage.

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.