USHL alum Landon Nycz earns invite to World Junior Summer Showcase

Landon Nycz earned one of 47 invitations to USA Hockey’s 2026 World Junior Summer Showcase, a week-long evaluation in Windsor, Ontario, that will help sort the 2027 IIHF World Junior Championship roster in Edmonton and Red Deer. The U.S. pool includes five goaltenders, 16 defensemen and 26 forwards, and the first two days will split the Americans into Team Blue and Team White before the group is consolidated into one Team USA roster on July 29.

That invitation is the kind of early sorting ground USA Hockey uses to separate players who merely had a good year from those who can survive in the next tier. Nycz’s case fits the model because the USHL still runs through the center of his development story. Before moving to Amherst, the defenseman played two seasons in the league with Waterloo and Sioux City, skated in 112 USHL games and produced 41 points on nine goals and 32 assists. He finished his junior run with 10 points in 25 games for Sioux City in 2024-25, and Waterloo said he also logged five goals and 13 assists in 34 games for the Black Hawks.

At UMass, Nycz turned that junior resume into a freshman role coaches could trust. He appeared in 35 of 36 games, scored one goal and added two assists, and blocked 16 shots for a defense that finished ninth nationally by allowing just 2.31 goals per game. That is the part USA Hockey usually wants to see from a young defenseman in July: not just whether he can move the puck, but whether he can hold his ground, limit mistakes and stay on the ice against older, stronger competition.

The St. Louis Blues added another layer in June when they selected Nycz in the fourth round, 107th overall, of the 2026 NHL Draft. UMass also lists a path that started with the Oakland Jr. Grizzlies at the 15U level, which is part of why the USHL remains such a steady feeder into college hockey and, eventually, these summer national-team camps.

Nycz’s first look comes when team practices begin July 22 at WFCU Centre, followed by games on July 26 and 27 and a consolidated Team USA roster starting July 29. The showcase will include Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States in 10 international games, one more than the 2025 event in Minneapolis, and Nycz now has the kind of stage where a reliable, low-mistake defenseman can turn an invitation into a real run at the next World Junior roster.