Sidney Crosby will play for Canada at the 2025 IIHF World Championship, and he will be joined by one of his former teammates with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The center will play in the tournament for the first time since 2015, when he was Canada’s captain and helped his country win a gold medal.
The World Championship has taken on a higher level of importance this year as players across the world try to showcase themselves months ahead of the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics next February, which will include NHL players for the first time since the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Crosby will be joined on Canada by goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who is retiring from the NHL, but announced Monday he will play in the Worlds.
Crosby and Fleury were teammates in Pittsburgh from 2005-06 to 2016-17, winning the Stanley Cup three times.
It will be the first time Fleury is playing at the World Championship, and one of the main reasons he’s going is because of Crosby.
“I’m excited, excited to go,” Fleury said Monday. “I’ve never played in the World Championship. I haven’t played with Sid in a while obviously, so I think it’ll be fun to go spend some time together and yell at him in practice a bit. Keep him honest in practice.”
Crosby, who was born in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, could be joined by Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, who grew up in nearby Halifax. The two train together during the offseason and were teammates with Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off earlier this year.
If MacKinnon plays for Canada, it would be his first time at Worlds since a second-place finish in 2017.
The World Championship is being played in Stockholm, Sweden, and Herning, Denmark from May 9-25.
Crosby and potentially MacKinnon will be joined by several top NHL players, with more likely coming after their teams are eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Avalanche lost in the Western Conference First Round to the Dallas Stars in seven games; the Penguins did not qualify.
Canada’s initial 15-player roster included Philadelphia Flyers teammates forwards Travis Konecny and Tyson Foerster, and defenseman Travis Sanheim; San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini; center Bo Horvat and defenseman Noah Dobson from the New York Islanders; and centers Adam Fantilli and Kent Johnson from the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The 26 players named to the United States roster includes four members of the Utah Hockey Club: forwards Logan Cooley, Josh Doan and Clayton Keller, and defenseman Michael Kesselring. Also on the roster are Boston Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman, Buffalo Sabres forward Tage Thompson, Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski, Nashville Predators defenseman Brady Skjei, and Anaheim Ducks teammates, forward Cutter Gauthier and defenseman Jackson LaCombe.
Among those playing for Sweden are goalie Jacob Markstrom (New Jersey Devils), defensemen Rasmus Andersson (Calgary Flames) and Jonas Brodin (Minnesota Wild), and forwards link-placeholder-3, Lucas Raymond (Detroit Red Wings), Elias Lindholm (Bruins), William Eklund (Sharks) and Mika Zibanejad (New York Rangers).
Nashville Predators goalies Juuse Saros and Justus Annunen will play for Finland, along with defenseman Nikolas Matinpalo (Ottawa Senators), and forwards Juuso Parssinen (Rangers), Eeli Tolvanen (Seattle Kraken) and Teuvo Teravainen (Chicago Blackhawks).
Three members of the Devils will play for Switzerland: forwards Nico Hischier and Timo Meier, and defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler.
Germany’s roster will include goalie Philipp Grubauer (Kraken), defenseman Moritz Seider (Red Wings) and forward Lukas Reichel (Blackhawks).
The tournament will feature 16 teams; Group A for the preliminary round consists of Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden, with its games at Avicii Arena in Stockholm.
Group B features Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Norway, Switzerland and the United States, with games at Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning.
The quarterfinals are May 22, the semifinals on May 24, and the gold- and bronze-medal games are May 25.
Czechia is the defending champion, having defeated Switzerland 2-0 in the gold-medal game last year in Czechia. Sweden defeated Canada 4-2 to win the bronze medal. The U.S. finished fifth.
NHL.com independent correspondent Jessi Pierce contributed to this report
