For Trey Augustine it’s another chance to climb the mountain

For the Team USA goalie his World Junior career will end this weekend, he has a chance to make history at the same time.

David Lassonde, USA Hockey’s national goalie coach, remembers the first time he watched Trey Augustine play goalie.

“He was playing for Honeybaked (as a 15-year-old), and just the maturity in which he approached everything, whether it was his game-day prep or practice habits,” Lassonde said. “He always dealt positively with the noise that surrounds him.”

And this weekend that noise could be deafening as Augustine and Team USA try to become the first American team, ever, to win back-to-back gold medals at the World Junior Championship.

“There’s never a moment Trey isn’t ready for,” Michigan State coach Adam Nightingale once told me. “That’s what makes him so great.”

For a 19-year-old goalie Augustine has one of the most impressive résumés we’ve ever seen.

He’s a three-time starter at World Junior, with the gold medal from 2024, has won gold at the Under-18 world championships and has already made his senior debut, joining and playing for Team USA at the 2024 IIHF World Championships.

At the collegiate level, he’s already won a Big 10 championship and most importantly his commitment and flip from rival Michigan changed the balance of power for college hockey in his home state.

Add in the home state connection to the Detroit Red Wings, and the expectation he’ll someday be part of a tandem with Sebastian Cossa, and it’s easy to see how the outside noise could overwhelm most teenagers.

“It doesn’t make sense that Trey is as calm as he is,” Michigan State captain Red Savage told me earlier this season. “Everything he’s ready for, he’s so calm, he’s the backbone of our team because he never shakes, he solidifies everything.”

From a hockey perspective, it’s actually hard to define why Augustine is such a highly-touted goalie prospect.

Even if you watch him regularly, Augustine is remarkable unremarkable in his play. He’s not big, he’s 6-foot-1, and he’s not freakishly athletic like many smaller goalies that reach the NHL. Augustine makes some great saves, but he’s not making highlight-reel stops.

Instead he’s simply always in position, making the right read, and he doesn’t create any problems for his defense. He’s very Connor Hellebuyck like, but not in a monstrous 6-foot-4 frame.

So why does it work for Augustine?

For those who know Augustine well and have worked with him closely, like Lassonde, it comes down to the goalie’s hockey IQ. Augustine is ahead of the play and reads the game extremely because he understands it better than most goaltenders, especially for his age group.

“I think when you learn to play at his size and his age, you learn that you have to know the game, you can’t just engage on the shot,” Lassonde said. “Trey is ready for the moment, because he’s been prepping for the moment throughout the game and the practices leading up to it.”

For example, there have been moments Lassonde said where he’s worked with Augustine on particular sequences in practice, a play out of the corner for example, because the goalie felt it was something he’d see in the next game against Sweden.

And whether he wins gold or not, which Augustine compared to climbing another mountain, this weekend will end Augustine’s junior hockey career. He’ll return to Michigan State, the No. 1 team in the country, with either extra motivation or a chip on his shoulder.

While Nightingale was already making waves soon after he was hired at Michigan State, the big move was flipping his former NTDP goalie away from the Wolverines. When that happened Michigan State had its base, which they’ve built into a national championship-caliber team for the second straight season.

Last season the Spartans had to rely on Augustine more, Michigan coach Brandon Naurato famously said, “I think they have a really good goalie,” multiple times after losing to Michigan State in Detroit last February, and it felt more like Augustine won the Big 10 as opposed to the Spartans themselves.

This season Augustine has been the foundation, but the team in front of him has taken further strides and earned that No. 1 ranking. This past week, while Augustine has been out, the Spartans have won three games including the Great Lakes Invitational and a Big 10 meeting with Wisconsin.

It makes Michigan State not just a trendy, but favorable pick to win the NCAA title in 2025, and it makes me think about what someone from USA Hockey once told me, “Trey always wins something in his second year of attacking a level. He did it at U-18s and he did at U-20s, he gets year 1 and then wins in year 2.”

From a long-term perspective, we are also potentially talking about the end of Augustine’s amateur career, and there’s a real chance he could sign with the Red Wings in spring.

Augustine hinted at it himself in early December at World Junior camp, noting he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be in East Lansing, before quickly giving a more politically correct response to my follow-up question.

Either way the noise is only going to get louder for Augustine, who has quietly dealt with it all so far.