That’s a wrap on the 2025 World Junior Championship! The Americans once again showed up as something of a powerhouse in the tournament, and despite being given a bit of trouble in the finale, came away with the gold medal in the end, making it back-to-back championships for them. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about, no indeed! The Flyers were once again well represented by prospects in this tournament, and while the overall results for them were a bit of a mixed bag, there were positives to take away from each of their performances. So let’s dig into those.
Of course, before we dig into some of these performances, we’ll get out of the way a note on those not seen in this tournament. For starters, Jack Berglund made Sweden’s roster, but he took an injury in the final game of pre-tournament play, and was ruled out for the whole of the regular tournament. That’s some pretty brutal luck, to be sure, but the good news is that because of his age, he’s eligible to return for next year’s team, and it’s hard to imagine that he won’t be as close to a lock for that as possible.
Additionally, Carson Bjarnason was one of the three goaltenders to make the Canadian roster out of selection camp, but when the team arrived in Ottawa for the tournament, he was never officially registered with the IIHF — presumably to leave space on their roster for any late registrations they might be able to put through, but weren’t — so he spent the whole thing more or less in limbo. And that’s even tougher luck, as this was his last year of eligibility for the tournament.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s get into the performances that did happen.
Oliver Bonk. Defenseman. Canada
5 GP, 1G, 1A, 2P
We’ll get right to the point on this one: this was a difficult tournament for the Canadian team, and it was a difficult run for Bonk at times as well. He had some real highs in this one, to be sure, namely the way that he was able to use his offensive instincts to breathe new life into a previously anemic looking power play when he was finally moved down from the point and into the bumper position. But the flip side of that is how he did look pretty clearly miscast as the point-player on the power play, and how, broadly, he had a number of moments when he looked lost with the puck, and lost as well in his defensive assignments.
And in some ways, it’s difficult to divest his performance from the context of the team’s struggles and evaluate him on an objective level, but maybe that’s also kind of the point — Bonk didn’t have a great showing in this tournament, and it was going to be difficult for him to do anything else as a player who was given a huge role on a team that was poorly constructed and never really was able to get rolling. We can file away this tough showing as a datapoint, but it remains just a blip for him. His projection is still that of a high-level pro, this hasn’t changed, so that’s the bit that we’ll hold on to here, above all else.
Jett Luchanko. Forward. Canada
5 GP, 1G, 0A, 1P
Like Bonk, it’s a bit tough to parse much out from Luchanko’s performance on that struggling team. His role on it was somewhat limited, as he was averaging just over 12 minutes a night and playing mostly bottom-six minutes at 5-on-5. That 5-on-5 play, then, didn’t have a lot of runway to get going, and we didn’t really see Luchanko showing up as much of a factor in this regard. The offense never really manifested for him in a meaningful way for him here, and he was held to just five shots on goal across his five games played.
Luchanko, though, did show very well on the Canadian power play, where his tenacity in checking made him really effective in disrupting opponents, and his speed made him really effective not just in creating breakouts, but also at creating chances with those breakouts — indeed, his lone goal of the tournament was a shorthanded tally against Latvia in the preliminary round. So there was some definite flash for him in this tournament, and the hope is that the team comes back stronger next time around, and that Luchanko (if he’s not in the NHL and not made available) can build on that foundation as well.
Heikki Ruohonen. Forward. Finland
7 GP, 0G, 4A, 4P
Of this group of prospects, Ruohonen is the one who went the furthest, cruising along with the Finnish team to the gold medal game, where they ultimately fell just short with the loss to the Americans in overtime. But despite the difficult end to the tournament on a collective team level, it was still quite a solid tournament for Ruohonen. We didn’t see heaps of individual offense from him — he was held without a goal in the tournament, and only contributed nine shots on goal across his seven games played — but he did step up nicely on the playmaking side, and was rewarded with four assists for his work.
He was given something of a middling role on the team, averaging just under 15 minutes per game across all situations, but he still showed well in that role. He played with very good pace, was checking well, winning a good volume of his battles along the boards. We don’t often get to commend a details-focused game in a best on best international tournament such as this one, but that’s what Ruohonen brought here — it wasn’t an overly flashy effort, but he took care of his play in the way that he needed to, and played an important part in the collective effort to raise the level of play for the Finns to where it needed to be to bring them the success that they did find in this tournament. It was a solid effort, and one that he’ll almost certainly build on next time around.
