Taking place in a secure bubble environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Juniors will run from Dec. 25 through Jan. 5 at Rogers Place in Edmonton, with two groups of five teams playing in an internal round-robin before moving on to a three-round playoff to decide a winner.
NHL Network will broadcast every game from the tournament in the United States.
For the preliminary round, the 10 participating nations have been split up into two separate groups: defending champion Canada, Finland, Switzerland, Slovakia and Germany are in Group A, while Group B features Russia, Sweden, the United States, the Czech Republic and Austria.
This tournament will mark Knight's third appearance at the World Juniors. After taking home a silver medal as a backup in 2019, the 19-year-old goaltender was named one of USA's top-3 players last year after going 2-2-0 with a 2.49 goals-against average and .913 save percentage.
"Playing last year definitely helps," said Knight, who looks to have USA's starting job locked down again. "As a goalie, I think every good goalie wants to play. They feel better when they're playing and not just going in and out of games and stuff. That causes inconsistency. Being able to play a bunch, feel the grind of a tournament, it's a lot. I think that's actually a good part."
Hoping to add another championship to his mantle, Lundell, 19, helped Finland claim gold at the 2019 World Juniors after registering four points (one goal, three assists) in seven games despite being just 17 years old. Unfortunately, he was forced to sit out last year's event due to an injury.
As for Levi, Puutio and Heineman, this will mark their first-ever trip to the tournament.
"It's awesome that I made the team, but the work has only begun," said Levi, who hopes to earn some playing time in net for Canada. "It was nice to hear my name, but now is when it really starts. Now is when the work for the gold medal starts. For me, it's not winning the starting spot, it's just contributing as much as I can and stopping the puck. I just want to win a gold medal…I just want to be able to contribute. Whatever the coaches decide, they decide."
Stay tuned to FloridaPanthers.com and @FlaPanthers on Twitter for more World Juniors coverage.
