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If you treat the 4 Nations Face-Off as the store brand Olympic Gamesa prelude to another event that people really care about, a dress rehearsal for everyone involved, an appetizer, a distraction or a waste of time, the Canadian head coach wants you to know something.
“There won’t be people thinking about the Olympics,” Jon Cooper told reporters Thursday in the wake of the selection announcements for Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland. “It will all be about 4 Nations. I don’t think anyone will ever sit here and say this is a stepping stone to the Olympics. Now that the tournament is over and we’re all doing our debriefing on everything that’s happening, I think maybe by then we’ll be sitting here saying this worked or this didn’t work.
“I think you take all that information with you after the tournament, but we built this team to win the 4 Nations. It will still be a year before the Olympic Games take place.”
A year and a few months even. That doesn’t stop us from thinking about it either. Here are some Olympic topics I’ll be thinking about once February’s best-on-best tournament is over.
We’ll get the goaltending question out of the way at the top, and we’ll start with some credit for GM Don Sweeney, whose assessment of the situation seemed reasonable and optimistic at the same time. Jordan Binnington and and Adin Hill both bring “high-leverage” experience to the roster, he said, which was a priority for Team Canada’s front office.
“We were a lot calmer in our goaltender selection than what the outside world might have seen,” Sweeney said Thursday. “Would you like to have access to a man who is on absolute heat for the next two months? Possibly.”
Possible? Probably? Certainly. There are systemic issues and bad luck at play here that have tied the front office’s hands – good luck finding options that are better than the ones they went with – but the end result is the biggest variable for both tournament and the coming years of international hockey. Both Binnington and Hill are above-average goalkeepers across the board, albeit narrowly in some areas. Both have had an above-average percentage of quality starts this season, according to Hockey Reference. The same goes for save percentage and goals saved above expectations. Both played the best hockey of their lives in the Stanley Cup playoffs, with plenty of uneven stretches elsewhere. In short, they’re fine – and in this case, ‘fine’ will have to suffice.
The upshot is this: Binnington and Hill both have a chance to lock down the 2026 job, especially considering how little Devon Levi has shown in the NHL. A year from now, Canada may have Sweeney’s Guy On A Heater in the mix, but it’s hard to imagine that carrying more weight than a solid performance in February.
The ‘we’re not building an All-Star team’ approach seemed to pay off a little easier in the forward line, where Canada went heavy on the versatile secondliners who profile as premium bottom-sixers in a best-on-best tournament. No one embodies that principle better Anthony Cirelliwho is having the best offensive season of his career Tampa Bay‘s second line, while still offering Selke-caliber two-way play. (He should really be on the shortlist for that award, btw – “defensive impact at elite plus more goals/60 than Aleksander Barkov, Matt Boldy and Andrei Sevechnikov” says it all.)
And while Cirelli has plenty of company in the category of skilled, grind-capable attackers – linemate Brandon HagelCarolinas Seth JarvisFloridas Sam Bennett And Philadelphia‘S Travis Konecny they all qualify, to varying degrees – he is the only natural center, which in some ways makes him the linchpin of the overall plan. If a Cirelli-centric fourth line clicks reliably with a combination of those guys in February, Team Canada might be able to acquire a luxury item next winter. Are there worse things than having a player like Bennett in the press box, ready to roll when the situation calls for it? Naturally. However, what might be better – and possibly necessary – is finding a place for it Connor Bedard. The search probably starts along the fourth line. They are undoubtedly good players, but Canada doesn’t need them all. Three steps up are enough.
No choice invited more doubt than the choices Canada made along its blue line. That is not to say that the decisions were superficially wrong. When you have access to a ready-made duo that led his team to the Stanley Cup and posted an actual/expected goals percentage near 60 over the last three seasons, you take it. That is Bald Makar And Devon Toews. In Alex Pietrangelothey get an all-situation workhorse that has won Stanley Cup championships and gold medals. Shea Theodore has been a fringe Norris Trophy candidate. Travis Sanheimhas gone from ‘fine’ to ‘really good’ in recent months. Further down the list, all seven players make sense (to varying degrees).
Overall, though, it’s not a particularly dynamic group, with a handful of guys not currently playing their best hockey, and it’s easy to imagine that fact coming back to bite Team Canada. Evan Bouchard perhaps not such a glaring omission as my little buddy Dom would have you believebut it would also make a lot of sense to be included as the No. 7 pick in place of Colton Parayko – if only as insurance. Seriously, what happens if Makar falls into the Montreal Mystery Spot? Why not select the man whose skills come closest to his own? And if he isn’t, how about a real all-rounder? MacKenzie Weegar? This one, perhaps more than anywhere else, feels like a place where lessons can be learned.
It took a whole series of bad decisions to rob us of eight years of the best hockey, and an entire generation of NHL players paid the price. Chris Kreider could be one of the poster boys; he should have played in the Olympics when he was a 50-goal scorer. Now 33, his time as an elite winger could end before our eyes. Just ask Chris Drury. Despite all this, the US still viewed him favorably enough to put him on the roster, which only seems fair.
Yet players are like him Brock Nelson And Vincent Trocheck should be under the microscope a bit, at least as it relates to the 6-foot elephant in the room. Thompson would bring a level of firepower, both at five-on-five and on the power play, that very few American players (and Canadian ones for that matter) could match. It’s a similar situation to Canada with Bouchard; How many low floor, low ceiling choices are too many? Thompson, it should be noted, has played some of his best hockey this season – certainly to a greater extent than Bouchard. If that continues over the next twelve months, his case will be undeniable.
There is no more interesting depth chart in the tournament than what the Americans are working with in the middle. Right now they could go seven deep with it Auston Matthews And Jack Eichel at the top, Jack Hughes somewhere behind them, then (in some order) Larkin, JT Miller, Trocheck and Nelson.
The fun probably starts on the third line, given how Hughes feels about playing on Matthews’ wing. Look for Larkin to get the first crack there – and look for him to handle his business. It’s fair to wonder if he works as the best player on a contending team; in Detroit he fills in the first part of the equation, but not the second. With the US there will be no such problem. Larkin makes a lot of sense as the centerpiece of a turbocharged third line, and if that is indeed the case, the pieces around him are starting to slide into place.
Let’s put it plainly: Hellebuyck is the best goaltender of his generation, and two straight tough postseasons aren’t enough to change that. He doesn’t have to do much to cement his status as the no-brainer No. 1 goaltender for Team USA in Milan.
Still, maybe he should something. If he’s not anywhere near the best, at least he should Jake Oettinger, Jeremy Swayman or Thatcher Demko close the gap. Even if it’s just a sliver.
Sweden, like the US, has three goaltenders who would start for Canada. Jacob Markstrom looks ready to get the first look and we know what Linus Ullmark‘s top end looks similar, but doesn’t rule it out Filip Gustavsson; with a .931 save percentage and more than thirteen goals above average, he is having the best NHL season of the three by a healthy margin. He is also the youngest. It’s not hard to imagine him getting a shot, making the most of it and hanging on to the net for a while.
His days as one of Sweden’s best defenders are likely over, but the tournament could still be an indication of what Karlsson is capable of (or not) at this point in his career. Part of the reason Pittsburgh acquired him in the summer of 2023, there was the possibility that his presence as a play-driver could make up for a mediocre bottom six. The results have been… mixed, let’s say, and he’ll likely be tasked with something similar in February. If he succeeds, he will solve one of Sweden’s biggest problems and change the calculus of that roster going forward.
It is actually a fact that Kotkaniemi is still not one of the four largest centers in Finland. Do you take him over Aleksander Barkov or… Sebastian Aho? You take him over Call Hintz or Anton Lundell? That’s what I thought. Still, Finland’s best version features him in the mix in some capacity. The bottom six are brutal; we will watch Teuvo Teräväinen And Eetu Luostarinen to see if there is a place for Kotkaniemi moving forward.
More specifically, how seriously should we take a team rolling out some combination? Niko Mikkola, Rasmus Ristolainen, Juuso Valimaki And Jani Hakanpaä? A lot could happen between now and February 2026, but that could be a disqualifyingly bad group.
(Top photo of Erik Karlsson and Tage Thompson: Charles LeClaire/Imagn Images and Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
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