One of the Edmonton Oilers’ top prospects will represent Canada at the 2025 World Juniors.

Hockey Canada announced their final roster Friday afternoon, with defenceman Beau Akey being one of the eight blue-liners named to the team. Drafted by the Oilers in the second round of the 2023 draft, Akey played just 13 games in his draft plus one year, suffering a season-ending shoulder injury.

He had a strong start to that season, though, with four goals and nine points in 14 games, and the Barrie Colts defender has had a great start to this OHL season, scoring four goals and 19 points in 25 games. Akey told Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis in an interview provided to Oilersnation earlier this week that his conditioning was something that he needed to work on early this season, but he’s since found his stride.

Akey, Oilersnation’s fifth-ranked prospect heading into this season, built steam as the World Junior camp went on, and will now get to wear the Red and White on one of hockey’s biggest stages. Ellis projects Akey to be one of the extra defencemen, but anything can happen in short tournaments like this. The IIHF allowed teams to carry up to 25 players on their roster this season, giving Canada the chance to bring two more players.

Canada will play three exhibition games, kicking things off on December 19th against Switzerland, December 21st against Sweden and December 23rd against Czechia, before the real thing kicks off on Boxing Day. They’ll take on Finland that day, Latvia on December 27th, Germany on December 29th and the United States on New Year’s Eve.

Here’s Canada’s full roster:

Forwards: Cole Beaudoin, Mathieu Cataford, Berkley Catton, Easton Cowan, Ethan Gauthier, Tanner Hower, Jett Luchanko, Porter Martone, Gavin McKenna, Bradly Nadeau, Luca Pinelli, Carson Rehkopf, Calum Ritchie, Brayden Yager.

Defencemen: Beau Akey, Oliver Bonk, Sam Dickinson, Andrew Gibson, Tanner Molendyk, Sawyer Mynio, Caden Price, Matthew Schaefer.

Goaltenders: Carson Bjarnason, Carter George, Jack Ivankovic.

Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist, making up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.