The 2026 World Junior Championship is set to kick off on Friday, and the Boston Bruins have some prospects playing at the tournament.<\/p>\n
The tournament\u00a0will be held Dec. 26-Jan. 5, 2026, in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, and features the top under-20 players in the world. It\u2019s a major deal to be part of the tournament, and Bruins fans can pay close attention to Team USA and Czechia, as in total, Boston has three prospects in the tournament.<\/p>\n
The three Bruins prospects playing at the 2026 World Juniors are as follows:<\/p>\n
James Hagens, F, USA<\/p>\n
Boston selected Hagens seventh overall in 2025 and is arguably the team\u2019s best prospect. Hagens is playing at Boston College and is projected to center Team USA\u2019s first line.<\/p>\n
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Hagens played at last year\u2019s World Juniors, helping Team USA win the gold medal as he recorded five goals and four assists for nine points in seven games. With the experience under his belt, Hagens will be a focal point of Team USA\u2019s offense this tournament.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Will Zellers, F, USA<\/p>\n
The other Bruins prospect on Team USA is Will Zellers, who will be playing in his first World Juniors.<\/p>\n
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Boston acquired Zellers\u2019 draft rights\u00a0along with\u00a0Casey Mittelstadt\u00a0and a second-round pick in the\u00a02025 Draft, for\u00a0Charlie Coyle\u00a0and a\u00a02026\u00a0fifth-round pick.<\/p>\n
Zellers is playing at the University of North Dakota and is projected to play on the third line alongside Cole McKinney and Ryder Lee.<\/p>\n
At North Dakota this season, Zellers has recorded 10 goals and five assists for 15 points in 18 games. <\/p>\n
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Vashek Blanar, D, Czechia<\/p>\n
The final Bruins prospect playing at the World Juniors is defenseman Vashek Blanar.<\/p>\n
Blanar, a 6-foot-5 defenseman, was selected in the fourth round of the 2025 NHL Draft by Boston. This will be his first appearance at the World Juniors tournament.<\/p>\n
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If Bruins fans want to watch the team\u2019s prospects in action, Team USA and Czechia\u2019s schedule is as follows, with all times in Eastern:<\/p>\n
Team USA World Juniors schedule:<\/p>\n
Friday, December 26, 6:00 PM: Germany vs. USA (NHLN)<\/p>\n
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Saturday, December 27, 6:00 PM: USA vs. Switzerland (NHLN)<\/p>\n
Monday, December 29, 6:00 PM: Slovakia vs. USA (NHLN)<\/p>\n
Wednesday, December 31, 6:00 PM: USA vs. Sweden (NHLN)<\/p>\n
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Team Czechia World Juniors schedule:<\/p>\n
Friday, December 26, 8:30 PM: Canada vs. Czechia (NHLN)<\/p>\n
Saturday, December 27, 8:30 PM: Denmark vs. Czechia (NHLN)<\/p>\n
Monday, December 29, 3:30 PM: Finland vs. Czechia (NHLN)<\/p>\n
Wednesday, December 31, 3:30 PM: Czechia vs. Latvia (NHLN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 World Junior Championship is set to kick off on Friday, and the Boston Bruins have some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[11262,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-371684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-james-hagens","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}