While the Philadelphia Flyers failed to qualify for the postseason for the fifth consecutive season, we will still be able to follow a select few players this spring as Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim, and Tyson Foerster will be representing Team Canada at the IIHF World Championship.
Hockey Canada announced their first 15 players that will be representing the Red and White Maple Leaf in Sweden and Denmark earlier today. It will include some top-level talents like Macklin Celebrini, Adam Fantilli, Bo Horvat, Noah Dobson, and Brandon Montour, among others.
The IIHF World Championship is set to kick off shortly with the tournament starting on the 9th of May and running until the 25th. There are two groups of 8 teams each with Russia and Belarus still not allowed to participate due to the war with Ukraine.
Canada is atop of the rankings and will be in Group A alongside Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, Latvia, Austria, France, and Slovenia. On the other side, Czechia headlines Group B with Switzerland, the United States, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Kazakhstan, and Hungary.
The top-4 teams from each group advances to the Quarterfinals, seedings 5-7 automatically qualify for the 2026 IIHF World Championship, while the last place team is relegated.
Czechia are the reigning champions after the host country defeated Switzerland in the gold medal match of last year’s tournament. Sweden placed in third after defeating Canada in the bronze medal match, while the United States slumped to another early exit.
Canada will be looking for a much better result this year as they defeated Slovakia in the Quarterfinals but lost to the Swiss in the Semifinals. With players like Konecny, Fantilli, Celebrini, Horvat, and Dobson, they stand a very good chance at advancing to a medal round once again.
Konecny and Sanheim represented Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off earlier this year where they helped their country win the tournament in a nervy Championship against the Americans. They both had fantastic first halves of their respective 2024-25 seasons but slumped towards the finish line.
Nonetheless, Konecny still led the team with a career-high 76 points in 82 games and Sanheim also finished with 30 points all the while averaging 24:30 TOI. Expect both players to feature prominently this time around with a lot of the heavy hitters bowing out or in the postseason as we speak.
As for Foerster, the 23-year-old had a strong campaign where he finished with 25 goals and 43 points, which included 9 goals in his last 9 games to finish off the season in style. He’s represented Canada before at the 2022 World Juniors, where he tallied 3 goals and 6 points in 7 games.
The rest of the team will be filled out in the coming days with Doug Armstrong, Kyle Dubas, and Ryan Getzlaf among others in charge for Canada this year. Once players are eliminated from the NHL playoffs, they will have the opportunity to join as well, if they so choose to.
Canada’s first game will come against Slovenia on the 10th of May and will close out their round robin segment against Finland and Sweden on the 19th and 20th of May.
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