The only two players with men’s World Championship experience are forward Tyler Toffoli and Tyler Myers. A total of 12 others have played for Canada at the World Junior Championship, including Cody Glass, Peyton Krebs, Scott Laughton, Samuel Montembeault and Jack Quinn. Devon Levi and Jack McBain were part of Canada’s Olympic team in 2022.

One notable name on the roster is Adam Fantilli, who is expected to go second overall in the 2023 NHL Draft behind Connor Bedard. Fantilli was part of Canada’s World Junior Championship team earlier this year, winning gold.

The new will be shared by Levi and Montembeault, both of whom have experience with Canada. Levi had one of the greatest World Junior Championship performances in the tournament’s history in 2021 and has since become one of the top goalie prospects in the game. Montembeault has had two strong seasons with the Montreal Canadiens, weathering the storm as the team continues its rebuild.

The team’s most experienced NHLer, Milan Lucic, has never represented Canada in an official IIHF capacity. He represented Canada in a Summit Series competition in 2007. Tyler Myers (918 games), Tyler Toffoli (733) and Scott Laughton (519) are the others with over 500 games of NHL experience, while 11 have under 200 games played.

Arizona Coyotes bench boss Andre Tourigny will be the head coach, while Troy Ryan, D.J. Smith and Alex Tanguay will act as assistants. Doug Armstrong will be the team’s GM, with Shane Doan and Steve Yzerman helping out.

Alberga: I was a bit perplexed that Cale Makar was a Norris Trophy finalist. Fox, Makar, and Karlsson were nominated. My reasoning behind that wasn’t because I don’t like Cale Makar; I think he’s a tremendous player. I think he’s the best defenseman in the game right now. Having said that, with the sample size I think there were other guys worthy of the nomination. We all know who’s winning the award, but how’d you see it play out?

McKenna: Do we really know who’s winning the award? Is it going to be Erik Karlsson? He wasn’t my number 1 pick.

I don’t think Makar deserved to be a finalist. It’s not because he’s bad or he didn’t have a good year, but he only played 60 games. I can’t have anyone on a trophy list that didn’t play at least 70 games. You’re talking about the course of an entire season.

I had Adam Fox as my number 1 and I’ll tell you why. He’s the first guy over the boards on the Rangers’ penalty kill. He’s on their number 1 power-play unit. He’s +28. He’s a one-man offensive show.

The Norris Trophy is given to the defensive player who demonstrates outstanding ability in the position throughout the season. That means in all situations to me, I’m an ex-goalie. That’s why I didn’t have Josh Morrissey on my list. I didn’t even have Erik Karlsson on my list. Was Erik Karlsson an All-Star for me when I picked those? Oh yeah! Absolutely, but for all-around D, no chance.

I think there were some players who probably deserved some love. I thought that Heiskanen deserved a look. Lindholm, Hughes, Dahlin, any of those guys would have been a better choice than Makar, but hey, it comes down to voting. This is who we have. What’s your take?

Alberga: I got a lot of backlash on social media for saying there were other players involved that played more games and had a similar impact to Cale Makar, but I would have loved to see them recognized. Morrissey is one, Dahlin’s another guy. I love the Heiskanen shout. Hampus Lindholm is such a wild card but gets lost in the shuffle sometimes in Boston. I just think we are losing sight of what this award’s about a bit.

I don’t discount what you said about Erik Karlsson, I totally get it. I want the most all-around defenseman to win this award. We have gotten away from that a bit, no?

McKenna: We have, and I think it needs to be corrected. I don’t like it; I’m an old goalie, I know who plays well in front of you and who you can trust. Pete DeBoer was pretty pissed last night postgame when the awards nominations came out, and he went “where’s Miro Hieskanen?” I agree with him. There’s a lot of players like that, where they are not only good in defensive situations, but they’re also putting points up, Nick. Quinn Hughes should have been in the mix and Heiskanen was 7th overall scoring by a defenseman. I don’t like it that we just give it to the highest-scoring D-man, I don’t think that’s the spirit of this award.