Barzal, Dobson of Islanders expected to make team; Lafrenière, Binnington among new additions

© Steve Babineau and Josh Lavallee/NHLI

The 2025 4 Nations Face-Off will be held from Feb. 12-20 in Montreal and Boston, with teams of NHL players from Finland, Sweden, Canada and the United States competing in a round-robin tournament. This will be the first best-on-best tournament since the World Cup of Hockey 2016 in Toronto.

Though the international tournament is more than seven months away, NHL.com wanted to take an updated look at what the rosters for each country could look like, using a panel of three staff writers and editors to compile a list of 23 players (20 skaters, three goalies) for each team.

NHL.com Editor-in-Chief Bill Price, staff writer Derek Van Diest and LNH.com staff writer Nicolas Ducharme unveiled their original Canada roster in February, and Van Diest and Price take another shot at it now with the season over, with some changes. Also, six players (marked by an asterisk) were named to the roster last month.

Here is the Canada projected roster (listed alphabetically by position):

Forwards (13)

Mathew Barzal, New York Islanders
Connor Bedard, Chicago Blackhawks
Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins*

Zach Hyman, Edmonton Oilers
Alexis Lafrenière, New York Rangers
Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Avalanche*
Brad Marchand, Boston Bruins*
Mitch Marner, Toronto Maple Leafs
Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers*
Brayden Point, Tampa Bay Lightning*
Sam Reinhart, Florida Panthers
Steven Stamkos, Nashville Predators
Robert Thomas, St. Louis Blues

Canada has a plethora of forward options, led by McDavid, Crosby and MacKinnon, three of the best centers in the NHL with four Stanley Cup championships between them. Coach Jon Cooper and his staff must be salivating at the possible line combinations available to them in the tournament. There is only one change to our forward group from our projections in February, with Lafrenière of the Rangers replacing Mark Stone of the Vegas Golden Knights. Lafrenière, the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, is developing into the offensive standout New York expected him to become. He played well in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, getting 14 points (eight goals, six assists) in 16 games and helping the Rangers reach the Eastern Conference Final, where they lost in six games to the eventual Stanley Cup champions, the Florida Panthers. Another change is the NHL team Stamkos will be representing, with the forward now a member of the Nashville Predators. After 16 seasons and two Stanley Cup championships with the Lightning, Stamkos left Tampa Bay as an unrestricted free agent and signed a four-year, $32 million contract with Nashville on July 1. Stamkos had 81 points (40 goals, 41 assists) in 79 games with the Lightning last season, and is only three seasons removed from having 106 points, so he has plenty of offense left in him. Canada’s projected roster has three 50-plus goal-scorers from last season, including Reinhart (57), Hyman (54) and MacKinnon (51), who had 140 points (89 assists) and was named the Hart Trophy winner for being the League’s most valuable player. McDavid had 132 points (32 goals, 100 assists) in 76 games last season, so Canada should expect to fill the net throughout the tournament. — Van Diest

Defensemen (7)

Evan Bouchard, Edmonton Oilers
Noah Dobson, New York Islanders
Drew Doughty, Los Angeles Kings
Cale Makar, Colorado Avalanche*
Josh Morrissey, Winnipeg Jets
Owen Power, Buffalo Sabres
Devon Toews, Colorado Avalanche

Imagine having access to seven top-pair defensemen on your roster, two of which, Cale Makar and Drew Doughty, are former Norris Trophy winners. Canada has always produced high-end defensemen, and this is the latest example. Makar, Bouchard, Dobson and Doughty are all elite right-shot defensemen, while Morrissey, Power and Toews play on the left side. We’ve added Power to the list based on his strong second season with the Sabres. He replaces Vince Dunn of the Seattle Kraken from our original list in February. All seven of these defensemen are strong at both ends of the ice and viable options to quarterback the power play. Bouchard’s booming shot gives Canada an added weapon from the blue line with the man-advantage. Bouchard had 18 goals in 81 games last season and six more in 25 postseason games, most by way of the “Bouch Bomb,” as nicknamed by Oilers fans. — Van Diest

Goalies (3)

Jordan Binnington, St. Louis Blues
Adin Hill, Vegas Golden Knights
Stuart Skinner, Edmonton Oilers

The good news is that two of these goalies are Stanley Cup champions and the other — Skinner — just took his team to Game 7 of the Cup Final. The not so good news is that there is not a clear No. 1 of this group at this point, and there is not really a dominant goalie in this group either. We had Connor Ingram, who is now with the Utah Hockey Club, in this group in February, but Binnington, a Stanley Cup champion in 2019, made the cut this time. It will be interesting to see if Ingram, or maybe Cam Talbot, now with the Detroit Red Wings, plays well enough in the first few months of the season to get a spot on the roster, but for now, it’s Hill, Skinner and Binnington. — Price