USA Hockey announces (new) roster for 2021 Worlds

The American women will go for a sixth straight gold medal at this year’s World Championship

Yesterday, USA Hockey announced the 25-player roster for the 2021 Women’s World Championship, taking place in Calgary, AB, from August 21-30. The tournament, originally slated to be played in Halifax and Truro, NS, in May, was rescheduled in the wake of the province’s COVID-19 protocols.

The roster features all members of the United States’ roster for Olympic residency, with the notable exceptions of Hannah Brandt (F) and Kali Flanagan (D). We’ll get more into that later.

The roster

Forwards: Dani Cameranesi, Alex Carpenter, Jesse Compher, Kendall Coyne Schofield, Britta Curl, Brianna Decker, Lacey Eden, Amanda Kessel, Hilary Knight, Abbey Murphy, Kelly Pannek, Abby Roque, Hayley Scamurra, Grace Zumwinkle
Defenders: Cayla Barnes, Megan Bozek, Natalie Buchbinder, Jincy Dunne, Savannah Harmon, Caroline Harvey, Megan Keller, Lee Stecklein
Goaltenders: Alex Cavallini, Nicole Hensley, Maddie Rooney

Fresh faces

The roster contains a healthy mix of veterans and newcomers, with eight players making their senior team debut. Of the newcomers on the roster, five are still collegiate athletes, and all compete in the WCHA (namely at Wisconsin and Minnesota).

The youngest players on the roster are Lacey Eden, Abbey Murphy, and, of course, Caroline Harvey, who hasn’t even begun her collegiate career (she’ll suit up for Wisconsin in the fall).

Notable omissions

The only players who made the residency roster but didn’t make this Worlds roster are forward Hannah Brandt and defender Kali Flanagan.

Brandt could have been left off the roster for a myriad of reasons, though many signs point to the United States trending towards a younger roster. Meanwhile, Flanagan had a handful of really good performances during the U.S. leg of the PWHPA’s Secret Dream Gap Tour, logging the majority of Team WSF’s minutes as a top-pairing defender alongside Megan Keller — her omission is a bid of a head-scratcher.

USA Hockey also announced that all of  Team’s USA games will be shown live on NHL Network.