[1] Also present at the press conference were NHL Players' Association (NHLPA) executive director Marty Walsh and four NHL players: Connor McDavid (Canada), Sebastian Aho (Finland), Elias Pettersson (Sweden), and Auston Matthews (United States).

[2] At the press conference, Bettman announced plans for NHL participation in international best-on-best tournaments in coming years.

[11][12][13] Czech forward David Pastrnak called the omission of Czechia a "huge disappointment", though he said he understood there was limited time to organize the tournament.

[14][15] In early reporting on the tournament's format, journalist Greg Wyshynski wrote that the competition could not be considered best-on-best due to the omission of players from other ice hockey powers.

[17] The league confirmed on June 8, 2024 that the venues would be Bell Centre in Montreal and TD Garden in Boston,[18] after months of reports by various media sources.

If tied on points, tiebreakers would be applied in the following order:[24] Teams consisted of 23 players: 20 skaters (forwards and defencemen) and 3 goaltenders.

[32] On June 25, Jon Cooper was named Canada's head coach for both the 4 Nations Face-Off and 2026 Winter Olympics.

[33] Rick Tocchet, Bruce Cassidy, and Peter DeBoer joined Cooper as assistant coaches for the 4 Nations Face-Off.

[26][35] On January 26, 2025, defenseman Alex Pietrangelo withdrew from the tournament;[36] Drew Doughty was announced as his replacement on February 9.

Head coach: Jon Cooper Jere Lehtinen was the general manager, and his assistants were Mikko Koivu and Jarmo Kekalainen.

[49] On February 9, defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen was ruled out due to injury, and was replaced by Nikolas Matinpalo.

[26][53] On January 29, 2025, goaltender Jacob Markstrom withdrew from the tournament due to injury, and was replaced by Samuel Ersson.

Head coach: Sam Hallam In February 2024, Bill Guerin was announced as general manager of the United States team for the 4 Nations Face-Off and 2026 Winter Olympics.

[62] On February 9, defenseman Quinn Hughes withdrew from the tournament due to a lower-body injury, and was replaced by Jake Sanderson.