Cole Hutson\u2019s appearance at the 2026 World Juniors didn\u2019t go as planned.<\/p>\n
First, the Washington Capitals prospect nearly saw his tournament end early due to injury after being struck in the back of the head with a puck<\/a>, requiring a stretcher to take him off the ice and a brief hospitalization. Then, in his return to action with Team USA, the Americans fell 4-3 in overtime to Finland in the quarterfinals<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ahead of his return game, Hutson made sure to thank those who had sent him messages of support, including the Washington Capitals<\/a>. Caps head coach Spencer Carbery confirmed to RMNB\u2019s Katie Adler on Monday that he was one of the people from the organization to contact the top prospect both after his injury and the subsequent tough defeat.<\/p>\n \u201cI did, yeah,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cJust reached out to him, then talked to him as well after they lost.\u201d<\/p>\n Hutson finished the tournament with four points (1g, 3a) in three games, becoming the United States\u2019 all-time scoring leader for defensemen at the World Juniors<\/a>. He wraps up his under-20 national team career with 15 points (4g, 11a) in 10 games for Team USA.<\/p>\n The Capitals were well represented at this year\u2019s World Juniors, seeing six prospects spread among five teams<\/a>. Carbery mentioned that he has managed to keep somewhat of an eye on the club\u2019s youngsters while navigating a busy NHL schedule with the Caps.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to sit here and say I have a ton of time to watch all of the games that all of our guys are playing in, but I do follow and keep tabs on how the teams are doing, how our individual guys are going, how the tournament\u2019s playing out,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cI read a stat this morning, first time since \u201906, all-European final, which is good. I mean, not good from a standpoint of me being Canadian and American, but from a parity in the game of hockey.<\/p>\n \u201cI know the people selling tickets in Minnesota probably aren\u2019t thrilled, but it just goes to show you how competitive on the world stage the game of hockey is right now. You\u2019ve got a lot of proud Swedish guys ready to play for gold. It\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n The Capitals still have two prospects involved on the final day of this year\u2019s tournament, with Czechia\u2019s Petr Sikora matching up with Sweden\u2019s Milton Gastrin in Monday night\u2019s gold medal game. Sikora has been one of the standout forwards this year<\/a>, notching nine points (2g, 7a) in six games.<\/p>\n Hutson, who was downtrodden after the USA\u2019s loss<\/a>, will return to Boston University in the NCAA, where he has 20 points (7g, 13a) in 18 games this season. At the end of the 2025-26 campaign, Hutson will have a decision to make regarding his future, as the Capitals will likely offer him a three-year, entry-level contract<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cole Hutson\u2019s appearance at the 2026 World Juniors didn\u2019t go as planned. First, the Washington Capitals prospect nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-391304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391304","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=391304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}