Connor Bedard Toplines Strong NHL Presence At 2024 Men’s Hockey Worlds

With hockey’s international calendar on the verge of getting back to business, some big names are getting warmed up at the 2024 IIHF World Championship.

For the first time since 2014, NHL players are expected to participate in the Olympics at the 2026 Games in Italy. That 12-year gap has meant that many of today’s top players are waiting for their first chance to play for their countries at that event.

The NHL has also announced plans to start setting the stage for Olympic competition with the ‘4 Nations Face-Off’ in February of 2025. In lieu of the 2025 All-Star Game, players from Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland will square off in a seven-game tournament over a nine-day period, to be played in one Canadian and one American city.

As general manager of Team USA for the 4 Nations Face-Off and the Olympics, Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin made it abundantly clear that U.S. players who were available and wanted to be considered for roster spots at the upcoming prestige events should give strong consideration to accepting their invitations to this year’s world championship, which run through May 26 in Prague and Ostrava, Czechia.

In Europe, the world championship is the most important hockey event of the year. Top European NHLers regularly agree to represent their countries — even those who take part in the Stanley Cup Playoffs but whose NHL teams are eliminated.

For the most part, North American players show less enthusiasm. And the recent disruption of the international calendar due to the pandemic made recruiting even tougher over the past few years.

Now, players have a strong incentive to say yes — and the world championship rosters reflect that.

Team Canada is captained by John Tavares — the 33-year-old Toronto Maple Leafs captain who has famously been past the first round of the playoffs just twice in his 15-year NHL career. His three previous appearances at worlds all came early on, in 2010, 2011 and 2012. That set the stage for a roster spot at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, where Tavares won a gold medal but suffered a knee injury during the tournament which kept him out for the rest of that NHL season.

Tavares’s decision to join Team Canada after the Leafs’ Round 1 elimination last Saturday suggests that he’d very much like a chance to have the full Olympic experience in 2026. He made his debut on Sunday, chipping in an assist in Canada’s 4-1 win over Denmark.

Born in 1990 and drafted first overall in 2009, Tavares is the oldest player on a Canadian squad that skews young. Even after cutting 17-year-old Macklin Celebrini and 19-year-old Adam Fantilli, Canada’s roster still includes 12 players born in the 2000s, including 2022 first-overall pick Owen Power and 2024’s draft headliner, Connor Bedard.

Still 18 until July, Bedard finished his first NHL season with the Chicago Blackhawks with 22 goals and 61 points — both tops among all rookies even though he missed 14 games with a fractured jaw. When he returned to action in mid-February, Bedard played with a protective fishbowl over his face for the rest of the year.

Now, with Canada, he’s back to a regular visor.

At lower levels, Bedard has been a monster while wearing the maple leaf. He has a gold medal from the 2021 under-18 tournament and two more championships from world juniors — having played the U-20 tournament played both times as an underager. By his 18-year-old year, he was in the NHL. Incredibly, he’s still eligible for 2025.

All told, Bedard scored 30 goals in 27 games across two U18s, two full world juniors and the world junior tournament that was cancelled after four days in December of 2021.

In Prague, in his first appearance at the senior men’s level, he’s starting off even better. After two games, he leads all players with four goals, and he was named Canada’s best player in its tournament-opening 4-2 win over Great Britain on Saturday.

In two days, Bedard has already made his case to earn serious attention in what will be a highly competitive selection process for Team Canada in 2025 and 2026.

The No. 1 netminding job for the Canadians is also wide open at a time where Americans, Russians and Swedes top the NHL’s goalie rankings. After posting a .913 save percentage that’s his best since his Stanley Cup-winning rookie year in 2018-19, Jordan Binnington has chosen to make his case for a spot by suiting up for Canada in Prague.

Now 30, Binnington has just one other Team Canada appearance on his resume — playing 35 minutes as backup to Malcolm Subban at the 2013 world juniors. His competition for Canada’s starting role at the Olympics could include Adin Hill and Logan Thompson from the Vegas Golden Knights and even his partner with the St. Louis Blues, Joel Hofer, who is also with him at worlds.

For the Americans, the front-runners for starting goaltender will be Vezina Trophy finalists Connor Hellebuyck and Thatcher Demko, while Jeremy Swayman’s case gets stronger with every playoff game he starts for the Boston Bruins.

Playing their group-stage games at the world championship in Ostrava, the Americans are leaning on journeymen Alex Lyon of the Detroit Red Wings and Alex Nedeljkovic of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who both had strong seasons. Trey Augustine, the 2024 world juniors gold medalist, rounds out the platoon.

The U.S. leadership group is headlined by Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk, wearing the ‘C’ at age 24 in his first men’s worlds appearance. He won gold as captain of the American’s U-18 team in 2017, then a bronze at world juniors in 2018.

Team USA has three alternate captains. Brock Nelson, 32, is coming off his third-straight season of at least 30 goals with the New York Islanders, while former Columbus Blue Jackets defense partners Zach Werenski and Seth Jones, now with the Chicago Blackhawks, are also each wearing an ‘A’.

The U.S. roster features a strong veteran presence that even includes a player born in the 80s, 36-year-old defenseman Jeff Petry. He played at three previous world championships between 2012 and 2014, but has never been on an Olympic team.

Other veterans include Kevin Hayes of the St. Louis Blues and Johnny Gaudreau of the Columbus Blue Jackets, while the crop of 2000s-born players includes 2019 draft stars Trevor Zegras, Matt Boldy and Cole Caufield along with a trio of promising young defensemen in Jake Sanderson, Luke Hughes and Alex Vlasic. The youngest of all are the three forwards who won world juniors gold in 2024: Will Smith, Ryan Leonard and Gavin Brindley.

Through the first three days of action at the world championship, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland lead the way with two regulation wins each in group play. The United States is 1-1, dropping a 5-2 decision to a stacked Swedish team on Friday before rebounding with a 6-1 win over Germany on Saturday.

Next up, the Americans face Slovakia on Monday (10:20 a.m. ET), while Bedard and the Canadians square off against Austria on Tuesday at 2:20 p.m. ET.