Spencer Knight suited up for the World Junior Summer Showcase - a
mini-tournament for 18 and 19-year-olds - at the ripe old age of 17, though he
was hit or miss in his two performances. He let in five goals as a starter
against an aggressive Canada-Red squad, and then let in none in relief against
Finland - even when they had an extended 5-on-3 powerplay.

Despite that wide-range of success, there';s reason to believe he has a high
ceiling and should make the World Junior Championship final roster this winter.
 Should that happen, he would be the first 17-year-old goalie to compete in the
 World Junior Championship since Jack Campbell in 2010. Knight';s habits and
numbers prove he';s no fluke and destined for some good things with Team USA,
and they need to let him have the chance to prove that.A USA Hockey Product

Like many American players nowadays, Knight played in a junior-level branch
with USA Hockey. The Connecticut-native joined the National Team Development
Program (NTDP) to play for their U17 team.Spencer Knight (Rena Laverty/USA
Hockey's NTDP)

Knight was the backup to Cameron Rowe, who shouldered over 2,200 minutes while
Knight managed just 1,200. Through those minutes with that squad, he had a
2.55 goals against average (GAA) and a .915 save percentage (SV%). Both those
numbers are better than his counterpart';s, but would he still have been better
 than Rowe had he played the same number of minutes? Let';s look at goals
against average specifically.

Knight let in 52 goal and Rowe let in 135. Let';s theorize what would happen if
 Knight would have duplicated Rowe';s stats; in the 1,000 extra minutes Knight
would get, he would have to let up 83 goals. That means he would have a goals
against per minute of 0.08 in those thousand minutes. In other words, he would
be letting up about five goals a game for roughly sixteen games. This would
have made his GAA 3.77 for the season, which is just a tad bit worse than
Rowe';s 3.64.

Realistically, it would have been near impossible for Knight to put up worse
numbers than Rowe, even if they played the same number of minutes. It would
have taken Knight going from letting in around three goals a game to five for
his numbers to dip like that. If Knight had actually played 2,200 minutes and
his stats dropped in the later part of the season due to fatigue, his GAA would
 have - at worst - hung around 3.50. Even at that, his collective GAA would
have barely jumped over three.

Theoretically, he was the best goalie on the U17 team.

In reality, he was also the best goalie on the U17 team.Spencer Knight (Rena
Laverty/USA Hockey's NTDP)

There was a reason the U18 team called-up an under-ager partway through the
season and there';s a reason that it was Knight. He appeared in nine games for
the U18 team before his 17th birthday. After his birthday, he played five more
games with them, finishing out the Five Nations tournament with the United
States'; U18 team.

He will be with the U18 team for one more year before he heads off to Boston
College in 2019, a place that will boost his development like no other. In
fact, he';s already close to a former BC Eagle in Thatcher Demko.

Demko and Knight have grown close due to the Warren Strelow National Team
Goaltending Camp, a camp in which professional goalies work with amateur
goalies as mentors and Demko has some good things to say about Knight.

"I don';t want to pump his tires too much but he is beyond his years in terms
of technical play and maturity," Demko said of Knight. "I try to have good
practice habits and it can be good to see an older guy and what it';s like at
the next level and in the offseason, that [the switch] doesn';t just get
flipped off. It';s good to be around each other."Spencer Knight (Rena
Laverty/USA Hockey's NTDP)

Demko is a perfect example of how important development is. He went from being
17th and 28th among all goalies in GAA and SV%, respectively, his freshman year
 to seventh and fourth in his junior year. So, if Demko is saying Knight is
developing well, Demko knows what he';s talking about.

It';s hard to judge where Knight lies on the maturity spectrum from the outside
 looking in, but he';s for sure as good as Demko thinks he is on the technical
side; his numbers wouldn';t be so good if he wasn';t so good himself. And,
should he replicate those numbers again this year, that will speak for
itself.What He Brings to Team USA

There are two sides to this coin. One is, what does Knight have that another
goalie older than him doesn';t have? Older goalies have more experience under
their belts at high levels and can prove they can maintain quality numbers
consistently. Knight is a grab bag - are you going to continue getting solid
numbers out of him or will he start to slide? He already did well in one game
in the World Junior Summer Showcase, and not too well in another.

But then there';s the side of, what does being 17 have to do with any of it?
Jack Hughes is considered better than most all his peers at the WJSS and he';s
less than a month younger than Knight. Consistency is only considered a problem
 with young players because they haven';t had the chance to have sustained
success - it';s not that they';re not capable of it. Knight only had two
chances to prove himself in the WJSS, and that';s a very small sample size.

Jack Campbell, as mentioned earlier, played in the WJC as a 17-year-old. He,
too, went through the NTDP. At age sixteen he was playing on the U17 team and,
later, the U18 team. In fact, he played more with the seventeen-year-olds than
he did with his own age group. He competed in the WJC-18 tournament and won
gold. The next year he';d do the same. He also joined the WJC U20 team the same
 year. He won gold after three appearances. Needless to say, he became a highly
 touted prospect, which could be in store for Knight.

Campbell and Knight are following near identical paths at this rate. Campbell
has been in the AHL for six years, with his play reaching a new level in the LA
 Kings organization. Knight could follow the same path, and who wouldn';t want
a potential professional goaltender in net?

The fact of the matter is that the United States needs a goalie to backup
Cayden Primeau, so they need someone to handle a handful of games in the
preliminary round, which is fairly low-pressure, relatively speaking. Given
his track history of success and the high ceiling he has, there';s no reason
for the US to not take a chance on Knight and name him to the final roster as a
 back-up.

The post WJC: Team USA Should Give Knight the Net appeared first on The Hockey
Writers.

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