I have updated this thread for the 2018 tournament. Now that Nylander has been released to Sweden I don't think that there are any more players who may or may not miss the tournament due to professional commitments. As before, if there are any mistakes this year or for previous years please let me know and I will be happy to update. Over the last few weeks I skimmed through some previous years and added several players that missed tournaments in the early 90s and the 80s, so I suspect that there are still some players out there.
One reminder is that the list does not include players who missed the tournament due to injury, regardless of whether they were in the NHL or not. I don't need to be reminded that McDavid missed the 2016 tournament.
I am also curious if anyone knows what the situation was with Mathieu Schneider in 1989, Kevin Hatcher in 1985 and Craig Janney in 1987. All three were Americans who would have been returning players and keys to their respective teams, all seem to have been relatively healthy and yet none of them played in those years. They were all in junior or NCAA so it wasn't the NHL that kept them out, so I am curious if they refused to play. I know that Lemieux famously refused to play for Canada in 1984 (and there were other lesser Canadians who did the same in some early years) and I think that Lafontaine might have done the same in 1983, so it was somewhat common at that time. Any recollection is appreciated.