Devils Prospects

Devils Seamus Casey, Team USA Win Gold at World Junior Championship

Seamus Casey finishes the 2024 World Junior Championship tournament with six assists, plus-8, and gold.

Published

4 months ago

January 5, 2024

New Jersey Devils prospect Seamus Casey and Team USA came into the 2024 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships as the favorite to win the tournament. They fulfilled those expectations on Friday.

Team USA topped the hosts, Team Sweden, 6-2 in the tournament final. It’s the sixth time in the red, white, and blue claimed gold at the World Junior Championships.

Tampa Bay Lightning prospect Isaac Howard scored twice and after Zeev Buium ensured USA’s lead, Ryan Leonard sealed the deal and blew a kiss to the fans in Sweden.

Ryan Leonard is a BULLY pic.twitter.com/H2aXlPWefQ

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) January 5, 2024

Additional goal scorers for USA include Gabe Perreault and Rutger McGroarty who opened and closed the scoring in USA’s victory.

Casey had a strong tournament, although he didn’t find the scoresheet in the gold medal game. The Devils’ defense prospects final stat line read two penalty minutes, one shot on goal, and a plus-1 in 18:45 of time on ice.

The University of Michigan product finished the tournament playing in six contests, missing one with an illness, accruing six assists, seven shots on goal, and was a plus-8 in the tournament.

In the closing moments of the tournament’s final, Sweden took exception to Team USA celebrating before the final buzzer. That resulted in quite a line brawl between the two countries.

“It was kind of ugly,” Casey’s defense partner Zeev Buium explained. “We were up by a big lead in their home & things got out of control. I’m not going to s—t on Sweden, but it’s not classy.”

There’s certainly no love lost between USA and Sweden who have certainly formed a rivalry, especially after Friday. However, Casey will no longer be part of said rivalry as he’ll have aged out of the tournament next year.

Casey will return to Michigan and finish out the NCAA season. His next stop (as well as Lenni Hameenaho’s) very well could be North American pro hockey.