SBI · Hlinka Gretzky Cup 2026 · Edmonton · Aug 3–8

USA named 23. Our algorithm agreed on 6.

On July 27, USA Hockey announced its 23-man roster for the 2026 Hlinka Gretzky Cup — 13 forwards, 7 defensemen, 3 goalies. We ran the identical 13F/7D/3G build through ProdigyPoints, our public composite score, over the same player pool (US players, 2009–2010 birth years). The two lists agree on 6 names.

Six shared forwards. Zero shared defensemen. Zero shared goalies. We are not asserting the roster is wrong — selection camps see things a stat composite can't. We are showing you the table.

Published 2026-07-29 ~5 min read Hlinka series · Day 1 Puck drop in 5 days
Top 10 Team USA Hlinka Gretzky roster by ProdigyPoints
Featured · click to view profile → Ryland Rooney Gunnar Conboy Caiden Pellegrino Jason Segal Landon DuPont Charlie Murata

The overlap

Roster spots
23
→
Names both lists agree on
6
26% overlap
Position groupRoster spotsAlgorithm agreesOverlap
Forwards13646%
Defensemen700%
Goalies300%

The six shared names: Ryland Rooney, Gunnar Conboy, Brooks DeMars, Colin Grubb, Nolan Snyder, and Michael Tang — all forwards. Up front, the two lists broadly see the same tier. On the blue line and in the crease, they diverge completely.

The average gap is not small. The 23 players USA Hockey selected average 3,056 ProdigyPoints. The algorithm's 23 average 4,059 — roughly a thousand points per player higher. Whatever the camp evaluators saw, it isn't what a production-based composite sees.

This has history

USA Hockey's Hlinka selections have drawn public criticism before — notable omissions from this roster are a recurring August storyline in American hockey media. We're not relitigating past rosters. But when a federation's picks diverge this consistently from production-based lists, the divergence itself becomes a measurable pattern — and that's precisely what the SBI series exists to measure.

Canada, meanwhile

Canada hasn't finalized its roster yet — 27 players are in camp in Edmonton through August 1, and the list gets trimmed before puck drop. One early observation from the camp invites: Landon DuPont, the consensus projected #1 pick for the 2027 NHL Draft, ranks 7th among Canada's own camp invites by ProdigyPoints. Charlie Murata leads. That's not a knock on DuPont — it's a clean illustration of what our composite measures (production, level, visibility) versus what scouts project (ceiling). When the tournament starts, we get six games of evidence about which lens sees sharper.

USA vs. Canada by the numbers

🇺🇸 USA (final 23)🇨🇦 Canada (camp 27)
Average ProdigyPoints3,0562,412
Median ProdigyPoints3,1632,570
Players over 3,000 pts122
Top playerRyland Rooney · 4,637Charlie Murata · 3,147

Read this table carefully before quoting it. USA's list is a final roster; Canada's is a camp roster that still includes players who will be cut — comparing them straight-up flatters neither. And ProdigyPoints weights league production heavily: USNTDP and USHL contexts score differently than CHL contexts. The number says USA's selected group out-scores Canada's camp group on our composite. It does not say USA wins.

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The full 23-vs-23 table. Every name.

One email. We'll show you both complete lists side by side — every USA Hockey selection with their ProdigyPoints, and every player our algorithm would have taken instead.

  • The full side-by-side — all 23 roster picks vs. all 23 algorithm picks, with points
  • The blue-line divergence — the 7 defensemen the algorithm wanted, none of whom made the roster
  • The 200-point head start — how making this roster immediately moves every player's ranking via F17
  • What we're tracking as the tournament unfolds — the specific predictions this table implies

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