What to know for the world juniors

This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports' daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what's happening in sports by subscribing here.

Last year's world junior hockey championship had a tough act to follow. The previous one was among the best ever, with Canadian phenom Connor Bedard breaking records and scoring highlight-reel goals in front of raucous crowds in Halifax and the gold-medal game ending with a thrilling overtime victory for the home team.

Predictably, the 2023-24 tournament couldn't keep up. With Bedard up in the NHL and the games taking place in the less-festive town of Gothenburg, Sweden, Canada was eliminated in the quarterfinals by the Czech Republic before the U.S. beat the host country 6-2 in a forgettable gold-medal game.

But now the world juniors return to their spiritual home country as Ottawa gets set to host starting on Boxing Day. The last time the tournament took place in the nation's capital, in 2009, Canada won its record-tying fifth consecutive gold, thanks to Jordan Eberle's late-game heroics in the semifinals against Russia.

Here are a few things to know for this year's world juniors:

Canada is (sort of) favoured to reclaim the title.

Last year's early exit halted a run of two consecutive gold medals and four straight trips to the final for hockey's No. 1 country. But oddsmakers like the Canadians' chances of getting back on top: they're essentially co-favourites to win the tournament along with the defending-champion United States.

The current betting odds imply Canada and the U.S. each have in the neighbourhood of a 40 per cent chance to take gold. Sweden is next at around 15 per cent, followed by Finland. Russia remains banned from this tournament (and all international hockey) due to the invasion of Ukraine.

Gavin McKenna is this year's Connor Bedard/Macklin Celebrini.

Last year, Celebrini stepped into Bedard's former role as Canada's 17-year-old top NHL draft prospect. While he didn't light up the world juniors to the degree Bedard did, Celebrini had four goals and four assists in five games before going first overall to San Jose, where he has 11 goals in his first 22 NHL games.

This year's version of those guys is McKenna, who turns 17 on Friday. Like Bedard and McKenna, the Whitehorse native will be one of the youngest players in the world juniors, which are mostly made up of guys who have already been drafted. Unlike them, McKenna is still a year and a half away from being drafted because his 18th birthday falls after the Sept. 15 cutoff. Only a handful of guys have ever played for Canada at the world juniors before their draft season — Bedard (three years ago) being the most recent.

If McKenna had been born a few months earlier, he'd probably go No. 1 this June. The slick Medicine Hat Tigers winger leads the Western Hockey League with 60 points in 30 games and is tied for 10th in goals with 19 — with one more full season in juniors still to come. At this year's U18 world championship (one age group below the world juniors) he racked up a tournament-high 10 goals in seven games, punctuated by a hat trick in Canada's 6-4 win over the U.S. in the gold-medal game.

Canada has two of the top prospects for the 2025 draft.

Porter Martone, an 18-year-old winger for the Brampton Steelheads, ranks second in the OHL with 54 points in 26 games. Matthew Schaefer, a 17-year-old defenceman for the OHL's Erie Otters, has 22 points in 17 games along with the size and skating ability to become a top blue-liner in the NHL.

Also in the mix for the top pick is American centre James Hagens. The scoring leader and MVP of the U18 worlds is now thriving as a freshman at Boston College.

Five players are back from last year's Canadian team.

They're led by forward Easton Cowan, the Toronto Maple Leafs prospect who broke Doug Gilmour's unofficial OHL record by notching at least one point in 56 consecutive regular-season games (the streak doesn't officially count because it spans two seasons). Cowan won the OHL regular-season and playoff MVP awards last season for the London Knights and has 15 goals in 20 games for them this season.

Also back at forward are Carson Rehkopf and Brayden Yager, who was named the team captain today. Returning on defence are Oliver Bonk (the son of former NHLer Radek Bonk) and Tanner Molendyk, who made the team last year but missed the tournament after suffering a wrist injury. Here's a look at Canada's full roster. 

Canada's schedule:

The host team faces Finland on Boxing Day, Latvia on Dec. 27 and Germany on Dec. 29 (all at 7:30 p.m. ET) before wrapping up the group stage with a New Year's Eve showdown against the U.S. at 8 p.m. ET. The other group is made up of Sweden, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland and Kazakhstan.

The top four in each group advance to the quarterfinals on Jan. 2. In that round, the first-place team in each group faces the fourth-place team in the other, while the No. 2s cross over to play No. 3s. The winners are then re-seeded for the semifinals on Jan. 4. The medal games are on Sunday, Jan. 5.