Each player will find out his fate when Team Canada’s management reaches out in the hours before the formal announcement from a hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the brass has gathered for the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship.
At 37 years old, Marchand has been thinking about this moment for so long that it has informed his every waking moment for the past two years. He underwent three surgeries before the 2024-25 season, repairing a torn tendon in his elbow and addressing sports hernia issues with surgeries to his groin and abdomen, so he could be physically capable of giving his best when it was go-time for Team Canada.
He knows he has done all he could to prove his worth.
Last season, Marchand had 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) in 23 games during Florida’s run to the Stanley Cup. That came after he was traded to Florida by the Boston Bruins on March 7 to give the Panthers an edge in their bid to repeat. This season, he has 45 points (23 goals, 22 assists) in 38 regular-season games.
He has 1,025 points (447 goals, 578 assists) in 1,138 regular-season games during a career that began as a fourth-liner with the Bruins in 2009-10 and has morphed into one worthy of Hall of Fame consideration when he hangs up his skates.
But has it been enough?
That’s the question rattling in the heads of elite-level Canada-born players across the League. Have they done everything they can to make Team Canada?
Macklin Celebrini of the San Jose Sharks is third in NHL scoring with 60 points (21 goals, 39 assists) in 39 games, but he is 19 and Team Canada has valued veterans. Tom Wilson of the Washington Capitals is among the premier power forwards in the NHL, but will his game transfer to international play? Seth Jarvis of the Carolina Hurricanes played for Canada in the 4 Nations Face-Off but hasn’t played since Dec. 19 because of an undisclosed injury.
There are countless others looking at box scores each night, listening to scuttlebutt from insiders, wondering if they belong.
While it is Canada’s turn to name its roster Wednesday, the other countries will follow soon after. Each of the other teams will be revealed from Jan. 2-8.
But the resumes are finished now. Waiting is all that remains.
“They’ve been going flat out from the start,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said of the bubble players across the League. “There are great players that aren’t going to make that team, and it may be that their year wasn’t as inspiring as years in the past. It’ll be heartbreaking because there will be great players that won’t play on [the Olympic] teams.”
