Starting July 26th, four of the 10 teams who will participate at the 2025 World Junior Hockey Championship in Ottawa, will meet in Plymouth for the World Juniors summer showcase. There, Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland will get early looks at a number of national team prospects and determine which players may best represent their country at the chance of winning gold in Ottawa.
Team Canada announced their staff for the tournament, with some familiar names. Headed by former NHL coach Dave Cameron of the OHL's Ottawa 67's as the lead bench boss, Team Canada will look to bounce back from a shocking fifth place finish last year under coach Alan Letang, of the OHL's Sarnia Sting.
Cameron enlisted a few people from the QMJHL to his staff, including assistant coach Sylvain Favreau.
Favreau is fresh off of winning a QMJHL championship with Drummondville this past season as their head coach as well as winning gold as the assistant coach for Team Canada at the Hlinka-Gretzky U18 tournament last year.
Alongside Favreau, Team Canada's junior squad added Dr. R.J. MacKenzie from the Cape Breton Eagles as the team's physician.
As for player's things are still very murky. Scott Wheeler from The Athletic was able to confirm a bunch of invitees to Team Canada's summer showcase roster.
One thing of note, none of the players Wheeler was able to confirm thus far came from the QMJHL. This is in stark contrast to Letang's 2023 World Juniors team in which 6 of Team Canada's 23 skaters came from the QMJHL, including Mathis Rousseau, Maveric Lamoureux, Jordan Dumais, Noah Warren, Jake Furlong and Samuel St-Hilaire.
Unfortunately, all of the six QMJHL representatives have aged out of the tournament. So that would leave a new crop of players to help bolster Team Canada's roster.
Atop that list of fresh QMJHL talent is undoubtedly Mathieu Cataford. Cataford, a former third round pick by the Vegas Golden Knights, was a dynamo for the Halifax Mooseheads this past season scoring 90 points (40+50) in 65 games. The electric winger even got into a handful of AHL games last year with the Henderson Silver Knights and didn't look out of place with his first two professional points in just four games. Cataford was recently dealt to the Memorial Cup hosting Rimouski Océanic for the upcoming season and is expected to spearhead their offense.
Another notable would be Moncton's Etienne Morin. The Calgary second rounder is fresh off of a 49-point (12+37) campaign across 58 games. Despite standing at only 6-foot, Morin can provide a physical edge, which many past Canadian World Junior teams have looked for in their defensemen. Morin, too, was able to get into pro games, albeit one with the Calgary Wrangles. Nonetheless, it's a sign of confidence by the Flames to have offered him the opportunity to do so at 19.
Rather unlikely, but it would be interesting, is a guy like Baie-Comeau Drakkar's Justin Poirier. Yes, there's a lot of slights against him getting even a look at camp. He may be 5-foot-8, he may have been drafted only in the fifth round and he will still only be 17 years old by the completion of the summer showcase, but you really can't deny his 51-goal season. Plus, he carries surprisingly rigid defensive and effective transitional games. Furthermore, he's a physical presence despite his stature, which makes me think he could be a fit for that gritty depth scoring role on Team Canada. He's a complete longshot and this conversation may be better suited for the 2026 World Juniors, but if Poirier somehow improves on his already mindboggling draft year statistics while keeping up his play in the two other zones, he has the ability to throw a wrench into Team Canada's plans and make the team.
Team USA has already released their roster for the tournament, and it is unsurprisingly lacking in QMJHL talent. As for the other teams, it's unlikely to see any QMJHLers playing for Sweden and Finland either, given the countries players infrequently join the Q from the import draft.