Red Wings pick, MSU freshman stand out at USA World Junior scrimmage

Even if Friday night’s Team USA intrasquad scrimmage won’t count in any official sense, it’s hard to suggest it wasn’t meaningful. For the players trying to crack the roster for December’s World Junior Championship, the early audition played out with clear intensity.

>Like when Red Wings draftee Victor Plante took a stick up high and tried squeezing blood from his lip to upgrade a penalty to a double minor. Or when Team Blue rallied back from a 4-1 deficit to tie the score and score the first goal of the overtime session. Team White scored the equalizer before extra time ended, then won the shootout — and bragging rights. Players hooted and hollered at each other leaving the ice of the 6-5 finish.

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>“We’re taking the win,” Team White defenseman Chase Reid told The Detroit News, wearing a grin.

>In a more tangible sense, Friday night’s game at Little Caesars Arena’s Belfor training center did matter. As far as evaluation goes, the bulk of Team USA’s 48 candidates for a final roster of 25 got a chance to flash not only their talent, but their ability to play within USA’s system before Sunday starts the World Junior Summer Showcase in Windsor.

>“It was trying to play to an identity, and so I thought the guys did a really good job,” Team USA coach Adam Nightingale said. “Was it perfect? No, but we asked them to — I mean, especially coming out of summer, first time putting the scoreboard on, I thought we did a lot of good stuff. I thought the guys played really hard.”

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Seattle pick, MSU freshman Chase Reid taking big role as USA returnerThe best defenseman on the ice Friday may have been Michigan State-bound Chase Reid, whose two-way dynamism played a big part in Team White taking a 4-1 stranglehold on the game before Team Blue battled back. The Seattle Kraken first round draftee is one of seven returners from last year’s squad that lost in the quarterfinals after Team USA won back-to-back golds the previous outings. Reid scored four points in five games in that tournament, the most of any returner.

>Reid quarterbacked Team White’s power play Friday, with Red Wings pick J.P. Hurlbert on the left flank, Notre Dame-bound Sammy Nelson at bumper, Minnesota-bound Wyatt Cullen on the right and Denver-bound Mikey Berchild at the net.

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>That quintet took the ice for three power plays, scoring quickly on the second attempt. After a faceoff win by Nelson, Reid took the puck and slipped a pass to Hurlbert, who laid it in perfectly onto Berchild’s screening stick for a redirect goal. A simple play, but one that stands out when the highest skilled players sometimes overcomplicate their games.

>“You don’t have to do everything,” Reid said. “Everybody’s super skilled out here, so you pass the puck to one of the guys, you know something good’s gonna happen.”

>Reid is probably a top-pairing defenseman for Team USA come December. With that role comes a certain level of leadership. The concept has been preached by the coaching staff from the get-go, roster-wide.

>“I think leadership is a big thing,” Reid said. “I think teamwork and leadership. If we bond as a team before the rest of the teams do, we already have one up on them off the ice. So, I mean, we obviously have a lot of skill in the locker room and a lot of grit. So I think it’s just teamwork and bonding in the locker room.”

>It’d be no misordering of carts and horses to suggest that Reid is one of the guys USA needs to step into that role. The way he’s playing may aid him there.

Hurlbert flashes skill, scoring touch in winIn the moments after his shootout goal put Team White up in the count, J.P. Hurlbert wore a pensive expression as he watched the rest of the sequence play out. His eyes followed each skater as they tried to decide a winner in Friday’s bout. When the shootout finally ended in a goal for teammate Mikey Berchild, Hurlbert beelined for his goaltender Xavier Wendt with a big grin and a hug.

>Overall, Michigan-bound Hurlbert showed why he is one of Team USA’s most skilled forwards in Friday’s action. He also showed that there are steps he needs to take before he is a dominant game-breaker.

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>Hurlbert’s game is laden with skill, which made him good enough that Detroit traded into the first round and took him 23rd overall in June’s NHL Draft. He flaunted that raw ability with a first-period goal, picking the pocket of Team Blue defenseman Odin Vauhkonen and taking the puck straight to the net on a breakaway. With a deft move to slip the puck five-hole, he scored the 2-1 goal for his side. His pass to Berchild on the power play also led to the 4-1 goal.

>However, Hurlbert was also on the receiving end of a breakaway going the other way when Harvard’s Richard Gallant blocked his shot on a closeout and finished it for the 4-2 goal. Hurlbert also served a high-sticking penalty (though it may not have actually been his own) in the closing minutes of an abridged third period. That was when Michigan State-bound defenseman Tommy Bleyl scored the tying goal with 37.1 seconds to play. Hurlbert can coast at times, and that showed up Friday when his team led.

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>All the skill in Hurlbert’s game makes him a major scoring threat for Team USA, but he could be more effective in the defensive zone, where his skill could be a major asset in the transition game that Nightingale’s teams rely on. For a July scrimmage, though, he showed lots to like.

Shades of former Michigan star evident in Richard Gallant’s gameEven though he stands at just 5-foot-8 and can only boast a seventh-round draft selection, Richard Gallant looked like one of Team Blue’s best players Friday night. The diminutive skater forechecked with tenacity, pressured the puck up ice and played a major role in his side’s comeback.

>Coming off an 18-point freshman season, Gallant will play for former Michigan associate head coach Rob Rassey this coming season at Harvard. And Rassey is well-versed in helping undersized players thrive in the NCAA. He helped turn 5-foot-8 Gavin Brindley into the 2024 Big Ten Player of the Year and an NHL player with the Columbus Blue Jackets and Colorado Avalanche.

>Gallant told The News that he got to meet his new coach once already, though their connections are actually a bit older.

>“He recruited me to Michigan,” Gallant said. “I didn’t end up going there, but I’m really excited, really pumped up to get started with him.”

>The Brindley-Gallant comparison isn’t one-to-one. Brindley had a lot more raw skill to work with, but the two share a level of tenacity that perhaps shouldn’t be all that surprising in players who’ve been the smallest on the ice for quite a while.

>“As a smaller-sized player, I always have to keep my engine going, my motor high,,” Gallant said. “Prove that the smaller players can play the game the right way, and that’s just what I’m trying to do is just show my work ethic, show my compete each and every day.”

>As Rassey takes the ice with his first Harvard squad, Gallant could be a big piece for him to work with

Flyers draft pick says stint with Muskegon put hockey career back on trackThe past two years have been a rollercoaster for Flyers second-round pick Carter Amico. The defenseman credits playing for the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks with putting him back on track.

>After missing most of his 2024-25 season due to a knee injury, Amico entered last season at Boston University needing to make up some ground. After 18 scoreless college games, he left for Muskegon in January to find his footing.

>“It was probably the best decision I’ve ever made in hockey,” Amico told The News.

>The 6-foot-5 blueliner Amico scored 11 points in 27 games for Muskegon while playing lots of minutes, which he says helped him make up for lost time the year prior. He also scored seven points in 12 playoff games with a plus-nine rating. Now, he’s headed back to B.U. in a better place.

>“I got the development that I missed out on,” Amico said. “You know, obviously I got a lot of big minutes back in Muskegon, and it worked out really good for me. A lot of good coaching staff over there, and it was really fun.”

>Amico played Friday with Michigan State defenseman Sean Barnhill, and the two connected for Team White’s first goal when Amico slid the puck across to Barnhill for a seeing-eye shot through a screen. Barnhill didn’t score a single goal for the Spartans last season.

>“I tried to pre-scan before. I saw him in open ice,” Amico said. “I didn’t see a lane to the net, so he had to be open. So I just moved it over.”

>Amico and Barnhill will play head to head when Michigan State hosts Boston University for a series at Munn Ice Arena on Nov. 6 and Nov. 7.

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>cearegood@detroitnews.com

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>This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Red Wings pick, MSU freshman stand out at USA World Junior scrimmage