Who will make Canada's 4 Nations Face-Off team?
A bounty of talent makes for some tough calls
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On Wednesday night, Canada will announce its full roster for the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off, the new "best on best" hockey tournament that will serve as an appetizer for the NHL's return to the Olympics a year later.
For those who need a refresher, the 4 Nations Face-Off was created earlier this year by the NHL and the NHL Players' Association. It's scheduled for Feb. 12-20 in Montreal and Boston, replacing this season's All-Star Game. Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland will play each other once, and the teams with the two best records after the round robin will square off in a one-game final.
Ideally, the 4 Nations Face-Off would probably be a 6 Nations Face-Off including Russia and the Czech Republic — the only other countries with enough NHLers to form a team. (Unlike the Olympics, players from other leagues aren't allowed in this event because the NHL and NHLPA are running it without the cooperation of the IIHF, hockey's world governing body.)
But Russia remains suspended from international play because of its war with Ukraine, and the NHL and NHLPA had no interest in undermining the IIHF-issued ban — even though, technically, they can do whatever they want with their own event. The Czechs became collateral damage because a five-team tournament doesn't make sense.
The rosters
Canada, the U.S., Sweden and Finland each named the first six players on their team back in June.
Canada chose forwards Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Brad Marchand and Brayden Point and defenceman Cale Makar; the Americans picked forwards Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews and Matthew Tkachuk and defencemen Adam Fox, Quinn Hughes and Charlie McAvoy; Sweden selected forwards Filip Forsberg, William Nylander and Mika Zibanejad and defencemen Gustav Forsling, Victor Hedman and Erik Karlsson; Finland went with forwards Sebastian Aho, Aleksander Barkov and Mikko Rantanen, defencemen Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell and goalie Juuse Saros.
The remainder of each team's 23-man roster was due on Monday, and they'll all be unveiled Wednesday. Sweden and Finland announce theirs at 2 p.m. ET, followed by Canada and the U.S. at 6:30 p.m. ET.
Tough calls
The guy calling the shots for Canada is Don Sweeney, the general manager of the Boston Bruins. Sweeney is Canada's GM for the 4 Nations Face-Off and will be an assistant GM for the 2026 Olympics under Doug Armstrong of the St. Louis Blues. The Tampa Bay Lightning's Jon Cooper is Canada's head coach for both events.
Sweeney and his staff are blessed with a bounty of Canadian talent to choose from, but that also makes for some tough decisions.
At forward, it's probably safe to assume they picked NHL goals leader Sam Reinhart of Florida, top-five assist man Mitch Marner of Toronto and Winnipeg's Mark Scheifele, who's averaging better than a point per game for one of the league's top teams. The pundits also seem pretty convinced that Philly winger Travis Konecny, coming off back-to-back 30-goal seasons, will make it along with Vegas' Mark Stone, who's currently injured (again) but is among the best two-way players in the sport when healthy.
It would also be tough to pass up Chicago's Connor Bedard. He's scored only five times in 25 games this season, but the 19-year-old is as talented as they come and could be a full-fledged superstar by the time the Olympics roll around. So it might be wise to get him some top international experience here.
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After that, it gets murkier. For instance, what do you do with 34-year-old Steven Stamkos, who reached 40 goals for the seventh time last season with Tampa Bay but has just seven in his first 25 games with Nashville? And what about Edmonton's Zach Hyman, who potted 54 goals last season on McDavid's wing but has cratered to just three in 20 games this season?
On defence, it makes sense to pair Makar with his Colorado blue-line mate Devon Toews. Ditto for Alex Pietrangelo and Shea Theodore, who play together in Vegas. Winnipeg's Josh Morrissey and New Jersey's Dougie Hamilton are the two highest-scoring Canadian defencemen other than Makar this season, while Edmonton's Evan Bouchard had that distinction last year. Los Angeles veteran Drew Doughty is out with a broken ankle but could be back in time for the 4 Nations.
That brings us to the goalies — the soft underbelly of this team and a big source of anxiety for Canadian fans who pine for the days of Martin Brodeur, Carey Price and even Roberto Luongo.
You can argue this team is so stacked that it doesn't need a top-notch tender to win the tournament. But that doesn't mean it'll be fun to white-knuckle it with whoever emerges from the less-than-stellar options including Washington's Logan Thompson, St. Louis' Jordan Binnington, Vegas' Adin Hill and Detroit's Cam Talbot.
Binnington and Hill have backstopped their teams to Stanley Cups, but they both have a save percentage below .900 this season. Thompson (.911) could be the front-runner for the No. 1 job as he's a sparkling 10-1-1 for the surprising Capitals, but a hot-hand approach seems like the best bet here.
