Sweden:
The Swedes are my dark horse pick to win this tournament. Their team has virtually no weaknesses, with a strong forward group, a deep d-corps, and three strong goalies who are all having good seasons, this team could very well take the gold.
As for their captains, I am going to give the "C" to Victor Hedman. This choice was a shoo-in, not only is Hedman the current captain of the Tampa Bay Lightning, but he has the most experience of any player on this team at best-on-best events (besides Erik Karlsson), having played for Team Sweden at the 2016 World Cup, and winning two Stanley Cups in his career.
Filip Forsberg and Mattias Ekholm deserve letters as well, as both are players from the 2016 squad and have become one of the better players in the league at their positions.
Finding one other players to wear an "A" has been much more difficult, however. Players such as Mika Zibanejad and Elias Lindholm have a strong case for a letter, but have had awful starts to the 2024-25 year. The aforementioned Erik Karlsson has the experience for an alternate captain naming, but he as well has had a shaky start this season and may not play much other than on the power play.
For my final letter prediction, I will give an 'A' to William Nylander. Now while he may not be a captain on the Leafs, or have any experience playing best-on-best at the international level, Willy is the perfect pick for an alternate captain. He's one of the top scorers in the NHL, he's extremely likeable, and has shown to be clutch in recent playoff runs.
Honorable mentions go to Joel Eriksson Ek, Erik Karlsson, and Gustav Forsling, but my final predictions are Victor Hedman (C), Filip Forsberg (A), Mattias Ekholm (A), and William Nylander (A).