St. Louis Blues 2025 World Junior Championship Roundup Day 3: Stancl Has Big Day In Czechia's Romp Over Kazakhstan; USA Stymies Upstart Latvia Day After Shocking Canada

2023 fourth-round pick nets hat trick, five points in 14-2 romp; Jecho also scores for Czechia; Colin Ralph in lineup for Americans to down Latvians, who took a shocking 3-2 shootout win Friday against hosts

It was a stats-padding kind of day for Jakub Stancl and Czechia at the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship on Saturday.

The Czechs improved to 2-0-0-0 in pool play, and the 2023 fourth-round pick was in on a lot of the fun in a 14-2 romp.

In the nightcap, one day after shocking host Canada, Latvia came back down to Earth and were thwarted by defending gold medal-winning USA 5-1.

* Czechia 14, Kazakhstan 2 -- After collecting a goal and an assist in a 5-1 win against Switzerland on Thursday, Stancl is now up to four goals and two assists in two games to lead all scorers.

His scoring would start in the second period, making it 7-1:

A second goal in the second period made it 9-1:

And Stancl completed the hat trick late in the third period making it 13-2:

Adam Jecho, a 2024 third-round pick, also scored for Czechia. His goal in the second period made it 5-1:

Stancl played 14:57, had a team-high seven shots on goal and was a plus-6. Jecho played 11:28 and was a plus-1. Ondrej Kos (2024, third round) did not factor in the scoring but played 11:34, and defenseman Adam Jiricek (2024, first round) played 15:50 and was a plus-3 in the game.

* USA 5, Latvia 1 -- Defenseman Colin Ralph (2024, second round) had his first point in the tournament when he had an assist on Danny Nelson's goal 1:58 into the game:

Ralph finished with 17:47 of ice time, with three shots on goal and a plus-1.

* Looking ahead -- All Blues prospects will be in action on Sunday with Sweden taking on Switzerland at 11 a.m.; USA plays Finland at 1:30 p.m. and Czechia plays Slovakia at 4 p.m. All games can be seen on NHL Network in the US, or on TSN in Canada.