The Athletic recently announced its roster projections [https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5932170/2024/11/21/world-juniors-roster-projections-lineups-canada-usa/] for the upcoming 2025 World Junior Championships in Ottawa. Interestingly, Montreal Canadian prospects were not among the top five teams at the tournament: Canada, the United States, Sweden, Czechia, or Finland. Are the Canadiens giving too much ice time to Lane Hutson? As many know, Russia is excluded from IIHF events for now, but for fun, The Athletic did a mock Russian lineup featuring two Canadiens prospects, Ivan Demidov [https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/619202/ivan-demidov] and Yevgeni Volokhin [https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/619258/yevgeni-volokhin]. Demidov and Volokhin are playing in the KHL this season, with Demidov one of the league's top rookies. Meanwhile, Volokhin has seen limited action between the pipes with just three games. Last year, during the tournament in Sweden, the United States [https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/1624/usa-u20/2023-2024] defeated the home team in the gold medal game. The game featured many Canadiens prospects, including Jacob Fowler and Lane Hutson. Montreal was also represented on Team Slovakia (Filip Mesar) and Team Canada (Owen Beck). For the first time in four years, a Canadiens prospect will not win a gold medal, ending a streak started by Cole Caufield (2021) and extended by Riley Kidney (2022), Joshua Roy (2022, 2023), Owen Beck (2023), and of course Hutson (2024) and Fowler (2024). This year, the 2025 World Junior Championships are in Ottawa. The tournament begins on Dec. 26, and the gold medal game is scheduled for Jan. 5. After failing to earn a medal at last year's tournament, Canada will look to win on home soil as they did in Halifax in 2023. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bookmark THN's Montreal Canadiens [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/montreal-canadiens/] site for the latest news, exclusive interviews, breakdowns, and more.
