Hockey Canada announced the 22-player roster that will look to defend the gold medal at the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship starting Dec. 26 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The team's roster will include three NHL rookies and each of the two top forwards eligible for the 2023 NHL Draft. Final cuts were made Monday after a brief selection camp that included two games against Canadian University all-star teams.

Included on Canada's roster are eight players that helped the team win gold at the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship, which was rescheduled to August after being postponed amid a coronavirus outbreak at the originally-scheduled tournament. Additionally, Canada's roster includes three NHL rookies that were loaned out by their clubs -- Shane Wright of the Seattle Kraken, Dylan Guenther of the Arizona Coyotes and Los Angeles Kings defenseman Brandt Clarke. 

Connor Bedard and Adam Fantilli, ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in FloHockey's early-season NHL Draft rankings will also be part of the team. Bedard was on the gold-medal squad over the summer, while Fantilli will be making his WJC debut.

📸 | Frame by frame. Closing out selection camp in Moncton. ✅#WorldJuniors pic.twitter.com/j6jShOhtwf

— Hockey Canada (@HockeyCanada) December 12, 2022

Here's a look at the complete roster, the cuts and some instant reaction.

Team Canada Roster

NHL affiliations in parenthesis, *-denotes returning player

Goalies: Thomas Milic (undrafted), Benjamin Gaudreau (SJS)

Defense: Nolan Allan (CHI), Olen Zellweger* (ANA), Tyson Hinds (ANA), Brandt Clarke (LAK), Ethan Del Mastro* (CHI), Kevin Korchinski (CHI), Jack Matier (NSH)

Forwards: Brennan Othmann* (NYR), Joshua Roy (MTL), Logan Stankoven* (DAL), Dylan Guenther (ARI), Zach Dean (VGK), Shane Wright (SEA), Connor Bedard* (2023), Colton Dach (CHI), Caedan Bankier (MIN), Adam Fantilli (2023), Zack Ostapchuk* (OTT), Nathan Gaucher* (ANA)

Cuts

NHL affiliations in parenthesis, *-denotes would-be returnee

Carson Lambos* (MIN), Riley Kidney* (MTL), Owen Beck (MTL), Zachary Bolduc (MTL), Tyler Brennan (NJD), Jordan Dumais (CBJ), Ryan Greene (CHI), William Rousseau (undrafted), Ethan Samson (PHI).

Instant Reaction

Canada's junior team is always going to have a chance and this group is no different. There were only a few surprises among the cuts, though Riley Kidney was injured in camp which ended his bid to return. Carson Lambos not being part of the team is a bigger surprise as it looked like he could be a top-tier defenseman in this group. That one may end up as a head-scratcher, but Canada clearly went with some size on the back end and that could have left Lambos on the outside even as a returnee from last year's team. 

Truth be told, they could have taken any combination from their camp and still have been the favorite in this tournament. Getting the players with NHL experience to be part of their squad makes a good team better and adds experience to their group. In fact, 18 of the 22 players named to the final roster are 2003-born players meaning just four players will be under 19. It is so often said that this is a 19-year-old's tournament and Canada is clearly taking that to heart.

The four players from outside of the 2003 birth year to make the squad are Korchinski and Wright, who were top-10 picks in the last draft, and then Bedard and Fantilli, who will be among the first few picks in the upcoming draft. This is a tough team to make, but even tougher for the younger players, making this quartet particularly impressive.

🎥 | @AdamFantilli scored twice and Joshua Roy had a goal and an assist as 🇨🇦 won its selection camp opener against @USPORTSca.

📊 https://t.co/V646lTpZqU
#WorldJuniors pic.twitter.com/KpJed1z8Av

— Hockey Canada (@HockeyCanada) December 12, 2022

Canada's going to have a very big team, too, in terms of their physical size. Six of their seven defensemen are 6-foot-2 or taller with returnee Olen Zellweger as the outlier at 5-10. Though he'll probably end up playing among the most minutes of that group given his usage in the last WJC. Up front, only 5-8 Logan Stankoven and 5-10 Connor Bedard are below 6-feet. This is going to be a heavy, hard team to play against.

As we knew, the goaltending position is going to be the real question mark for this team. Gaudreau has not played particularly well in the OHL this season, but did backstop Canada to the gold medal at the 2021 IIHF World U18 Championship. Thomas Milic was his backup there as well, but has played well this season while in tandem with Scott Ratzlaff with the Seattle Thunderbirds. The team in front of these two is good enough where they probably won't have to be the difference in a lot of games, but in those tighter contests, either Gaudreau or Milic will have to prove they can stand up to the challenge. Whoever does that best over the course of the tournament, likely get the most critical games.

This Canadian team should be going into the tournament with high expectations, as they always do. They'll be heavily favored to win it all, but it's a good thing for the rest of the teams in the tournament is that they don't hand out trophies for being the best team on paper. 

Canada will play three pre-tournament games against other countries as they continue their preparations for the World Junior Championship, before their tournament-opening game on Dec. 26 against Czechia.