Gabe Perreault showed why the New York Rangers are so high on him by scoring two goals and assisting on another to earn U.S. Player of the Game honors, when he helped the United States defeat Germany 10-4 on Thursday in its Preliminary Round Group A opener at the 2025 World Junior Championship at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa.
Perreault and Boston College linemates James Hagens — a Long Island native who could go No. 1 in the 2025 NHL Draft — and Ryan Leonard combined for four goals as the Americans successfully opened defense of their WJC championship. Perreault, New York’s first pick (No. 23) in the 2023 NHL Draft, had 10 points (three goals, seven assists) in Team USA’s run to the 2024 title.
Defenseman Drew Fortescue, a teammate of Perreault at BC who was also part of the 2024 title run, didn’t have a point. But the 2023 third-round pick played 18:48 and was plus-3, helping the U.S. defeat Germany for the 14th time in their past 15 meetings at the WJC.
Perreault missed an open net less than five minutes into the game. But he and the Americans kept coming, and opened the scoring when Hagens swatted a loose puck into the net at 8:07. Perreault didn’t get an assist but started the play by picking off a pass at Germany’s blue line.
Perreault, who’s tied for fourth in NCAA Division I scoring with 23 points in 16 games for BC, made it 2-0 at 11:56, finding some open space in the slot and rifling a pass by Hagens from the left boards past German goaltender Nico Pertuch.
Related: Rangers prospect Brody Lamb tied for NCAA goal-scoring lead at holiday break
Perreault, Fortescue help Team USA win opener at World Juniors
Trevor Connolly made it 3-0 for the U.S. at 1:38 of the second period before Germany got goals by Julius Sumpf and David Lewandowski in a span of 4:23 to cut the margin to 3-2. But Perreault set up Hagens for his second goal of the game at 14:01, breaking the Germans’ momentum, then added his second at 19:39, 59 seconds after Brandon Svoboda had scored, to make it 6-2 at intermission.
Perreault finished plus-4 in 19:12 of ice time.
Brodie Ziemer scored twice and Carey Terrance and Cole Eiserman once each in the third period for Team USA, which outshot Germany 56-22. The Germans got third-period goals from Lenny Boos and Timo Ruckdaschel.
Team USA is off Friday before taking on Latvia on Saturday. Canada and Finland are the other teams in Group A.
Another Rangers prospect, forward Rico Gredig, made his WJC debut for Switzerland in a 5-1 loss to Czechia. The 2024 sixth-round pick logged 13:24 TOI, had one shot on goal, one minor penalty for holding in the second period, and won just 33 percent of his face-offs (6-for-18).
