ST. PAUL — When the U.S. broke out the defibrillator, Lakeville native Brendan McMorrow delivered a jolt.
Much has been made about the Americans’ struggles on the power play at the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championships. Head coach Bob Motzko has fielded questions about it over the last four days amid the 0-for-6 start through two games, but went out of his way to praise the penalty kill, which started the tournament 5-for-5.
On Monday at Grand Casino Arena, when the U.S. offense struggled out of the gate against Slovakia, McMorrow’s effort on the penalty kill got the scoring party started.
Trailing 2-0, the Denver freshman blocked a shot from the point on before spurring a 2-on-1 rush. McMorrow fed AJ Spellacy to pull the Americans within one.
“It gave us a burst of energy,” McMorrow said. “The crowd was dead before that, so getting that life back in the building and the momentum back on our side was a big portion of that.
McMorrow played for Benilde-St. Margaret’s in high school before joining the USA Hockey National Development Team Program in 2002. He takes pride in being a good penalty killer, saying he “feels like it’s his role on this team.” But producing offensively while being on the wrong end of a 5-on-4 situation comes as a bonus.
“We talked a lot in the intermission about how someone has to get us going,” Spellacy said. “(McMorrow) gave me a good pass and I was lucky enough to score that one. It kind of just took off from there. It was awesome.”
Spellacy’s goal came just under two minutes into the second period. And despite Slovakia responding with a shorthanded goal of its own four minutes later, McMorrow provided his second spark to make it 3-2.
Lily Dozier / Special to the Post Bulletin
Spellacy’s cross-crease pass was blocked in the low slot. McMorrow cleaned up the loose puck on the back door for his first WJC goal.
“It felt really good,” McMorrow said. “In that first game, we came out and we were all just looking around at the towels waving and stuff. With the crowd behind us, it definitely boosts us a little bit. It’s been really fun having this tournament in Minnesota. I grew up 30 minutes down the road and I have a lot of family here. It’s really fun to play in front of them and for our country.
“We dug ourselves into a hole early and found a way to get out of it. We were getting a lot of chances but they weren’t going in. We needed to get pucks low and crash the net. Once we started doing that the floodgates opened and we started to score a lot more.”
Ryker Lee sniped the Americans’ first power-play goal nine minutes into the period to make it 3-3. After Michal Svrcek forced a rebound past U.S. goaltender Caleb Heil amid a net-front scrum, James Hagens tied the game at 4-4 with 44.1 seconds left before the intermission.
Hagens, who was named Player of the Game for the Americans, scored his second goal 18 seconds into the third period to give Team USA a 5-4 lead, its first of the game.
“When you’re a top player, you want to get in that net,” Motzko said of Hagens. “Huge for him to score two. Good for him. And he was good tonight — really good, and he fed off of it.”
“We faced adversity there. We were down for a little bit but we battled back,” Hagens said. “It’s nice to see that, especially early in this tournament. … It lets us know more about the type of team we have. We have no quit. We were able to see that out there and how we all battled back and responded.”
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Of course, it wouldn’t be a Team USA game if North Dakota freshman Will Zellers didn’t score the game-winning goal, his third in three games. L.J. Mooney banked the puck off Zellers’ skate on the back door to take a 6-4 lead eight minutes into the third.
Slovakia pulled goalie Michal Pradel and got a 6-on-5 goal from Tomas Chrenko to make it a one-goal game with just under two minutes left.
“Crazy game. Give our guys credit,” Motzko said. “We fell down and had no choice but to come back. Crazy game for us — we gave up two on the penalty kill and one shorthanded and one 6-on-5. It just turned into one of those games. But our power play got going and looked good tonight. I give our guys an enormous amount of credit for that.”
Slovakia jumped on the U.S. early.
Northern Michigan freshman forward Tobias Pitka beat Heil clean on a shot from the slot just under nine minutes into the first period.
After Kamil Bednarik’s holding penalty sent Slovakia to the power play one minute later, Chrenko doubled the lead. Chrenko had a goal and two assists.
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Slovakia outshot the Americans 8-2 through the first 15 minutes of regulation and took the two-goal lead to the intermission.
Team USA forward and Minnesota Duluth sophomore Max Plante left the game after the second period with an undisclosed injury. Motzko said the U.S. will know more about his status on Wednesday, but added that it’s “a big loss for us.”
“You can’t worry in this tournament,” Motzko said. “You have to bury it and move on. I think we scored our way out of a few games.
“I love the resiliency. We’re down bodies. I don’t know how many minutes Chase Reid had tonight, but that’s what you have to have in this tournament. There are certain players — (Brodie) Ziemer, Hagans, Cole (Hutson) — that have to be your guys. The other guys have to grow into the tournament, and we think that’s what’s happening.”
Team USA is off on Tuesday before a 5 p.m. New Year’s Eve tilt against Sweden to determine the top seed out of Group A in the medal rounds.
Lily Dozier / Special to the Post Bulletin
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