Flyers prospect Tanner Laczynski makes Team USA’s World Junior hockey roster

Team USA cut roster for the the 2017 World Junior Hockey Championship down to 24 players on Thursday morning and will make just one more cut before the tournament begins next Monday.

That cut will be a defenseman, meaning that Flyers prospect and forward Tanner Laczynski will be on the team, which begins play on December 26 against Latvia.

There were two big shockers in today’s cuts: Alex DeBrincat, the 39th overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, who played on the top line for the Americans at last year’s WJC, will not make the team. DeBrincat has 30 goals and 30 assists in 28 games so far this season with the OHL’s Erie Otters. It is not yet Christmas.

Ottawa prospect Logan Brown was also cut. He’s been out of game action since November 12 thanks to an injury, and that could have been what did him in.

Laczynski played on the fourth line for much of the evaluation camp. The Ohio State freshman has six goals and 16 assists in 15 games thus far for the Buckeyes. He’ll be one of nine Philadelphia prospects to play in the WJC, which is certainly the most we’ve seen in the nine years this website has existed.

Flyers prospects Phillippe Myers and Carter Hart will play for Team Canada at the WJC. Felix Sandstrom will play goal for Team Sweden and David Bernhardt is on defense. Matej Tomek will backup in goal for Slovakia. German Rubtsov and Mikhail Vorobyov will play for Russia, and David Kase will play for the Czechs.