4 Nations Face-Off team preview: Canada

Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby on one team.*Swoons*

McDavid on the same power play as Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar. *Drools*

Finally, Canadian hockey fantasies will come to life. Say what you want about the 4 Nations Face-Off being a relatively low-stakes event, but it will at the very least be fun as hell to witness many of this generation’s greatest superstars teaming up for best-on-best hockey.

And that star power really defines what Canada will or won’t be in this tournament. No team has a higher concentration of Hall of Fame talent at the top of its lineup, but no team has greater question marks in goal, and most prognosticators would agree Canada doesn’t have the best team in the tournament. Underdog would be taking it too far, but Canada does not enter the 4 Nations as the favorite.

PROJECTED LINEUP

Forwards

Sam Reinhart – Connor McDavid – Nathan MacKinnon
Brandon Hagel – Brayden Point – Mitch Marner
Brad Marchand – Sidney Crosby – Mark Stone
Seth Jarvis – Anthony Cirelli – Travis Konecny
Scratch: Sam Bennett

Defensemen

Devon Toews – Cale Makar
Josh Morrissey – Colton Parayko
Shea Theodore – TBD
Scratch: Travis Sanheim

Goaltenders

Jordan Binnington
Adin Hill
Scratch: Sam Montembeault

OFFENSE

It’s difficult to fathom what Canada’s ceiling is on offense. McDavid, Crosby and MacKinnon have combined for six Hart Trophies, seven Art Ross Trophies and three Rocket Richard Trophies. Makar is the most talented defenseman of his generation. No other nation can rival the superstar juice at the top of Canada’s lineup.

The Canadians have playmaking forwards in Mitch Marner and Brad Marchand; 50-goal scorers in Sam Reinhart and Brayden Point; and versatile gritty types in Travis Konecny, Seth Jarvis and Sam Bennett. If they use Makar, Josh Morrissey and Shea Theodore on different defense pairs, they’ll have tremendous puck-moving no matter which duo is on the ice.

Whichever forward line Canada rolls out, it will have some serious scoring threats. Even projected fourth-liner Konecny averages more than a point per game this season. And with so many unselfish forwards who can play multiple roles, coach Jon Cooper shouldn’t have a tough time putting together a devastating power play. It will be interesting to see how he chooses to deploy MacKinnon at 5-on-5: do you play him on McDavid’s wing to form a super line or have MacKinnon drive his own unit?

The only thing Canada’s offense may lack on paper: a truly deadly bomb of a shot from the forward position. On the point, Makar ranks among the league leaders in blasts of 90 mph or more, and Colton Parayko has a blistering shot, but will Canada wish it brought Steven Stamkos along just for that one-timer on the power play?

DEFENSE

Canada’s D-corps looks mildly underwhelming. Canada will be an elite defensive team. Both sentences can be true.

While no one will complain about the Colorado Avalanche duo of Devon Toews and Makar presumably forming the top pair, this Canadian defense doesn’t exactly call to mind the 2010 Olympic squad that iced Chris Pronger, Scott Niedermayer, Drew Doughty, Shea Weber and Duncan Keith, right? The 2025 4 Nations group may yield a single Hall of Famer in Makar. He’s the only member of this blueline to even finish as a finalist for a Norris Trophy, let alone win one…unless Canada decides on Doughty as the replacement for Pietrangelo, that is. That said, the D-corps will maintain a high floor with a nice blend of speed, smarts and, with Parayko and Travis Sanheim in tow, size. Whether it’s Doughty, MacKenzie Weegar, Chris Tanev or someone else coming in as the ‘Petro’ substitute, Canada has plenty of quality options.

But they only need good, not even great, play from their defense, because they have all-world defensive forwards. Reinhart. Mark Stone. Anthony Cirelli. Marner. Jarvis. They are swimming in responsible two-way players, with Reinhart looking like this year’s Selke Trophy frontrunner, and Cooper has the luxury of deploying his Tampa Bay Lightning penalty killing duo of Cirelli and Brandon Hagel if he chooses.

GOALTENDING

Given the fact Team USA can match or exceed Canada’s overall depth of skater talent and has superior goaltending, Canada’s fate could come down to whether one of Jordan Binnington, Adin Hill or Sam Montembeault gets hot. So far this season, 67 goalies have played 10 or more NHL games; among them, Canada’s netminding trio rank 34^th, 26^th and 27^th in goals saved above expected per 60. The NHL leader – ahead of Connor Hellebuyck! – is Canadian Logan Thompson, who was left off the team altogether. It’s not that Canada’s trio is awful; it’s that the brass snubbed at least one superior option at home. Nevertheless, Binnington and Hill are Stanley Cup winners and will have an incredibly talented team playing in front of them. One of these guys can obviously find a groove for eight days. Binnington is the guess here for the Game 1 starter vs. Sweden on Feb. 12, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see Hill get a look for Game 2 as Canada feels out which netminder has more momentum.

COACHING

Cooper gets his deserved shot behind the Canadian bench at last. He’d been tabbed to coach Canada at the 2022 Olympics, but the COVID-19 omicron variant had other plans. He’s a two-time Stanley Cup winner and four-time finalist; among NHL bench bosses with at least 600 games, he trails only Scotty Bowman in career points percentage, sitting at .636. Cooper helmed Canada at the 2017 World Championship, where they finished as the runner-up to Sweden. His players on that team included Marner, MacKinnon, Konecny, Parayko, Point and Morrissey, so Cooper has some familiarity with this group beyond just his Lightning charges. What makes Cooper so well suited to the gig: he’s a larger-than-life personality who can steer attention away from the players if he needs to. Having coached the Lightning dynasty, too, he’s accustomed to handling huge stars and their egos. One hallmark of Cooper’s clubs during Tampa’s peak years: strong play on both special teams.

BURNING QUESTION

Will this team get pushed around?

Canada is loaded all over its lineup, but it doesn’t have the same collection of mean customers as its top contention for the crown, Team USA. Bennett will have to handle a lot of the rough stuff if he draws into the lineup. The Americans will deploy Matthew and Brady Tkachuk, J.T. Miller, Chris Kreider, Vincent Trocheck and Charlie McAvoy. It’s not that Canada will have zero grit – Marchand is an agitator extraordinaire, Crosby’s tenacity is unmatched, and Parayko is a big boy who can keep opponents honest. But the Americans by comparison have guys who truly relish the more violent sides of the game and could dictate the style of play if they want to drag the matchup into the mud pit.

PREDICTION

Canada doesn’t have the best all-around team on paper. We also shouldn’t underestimate the threat Sweden poses as the third-strongest nation. But for whatever reason, even when their players turn over from one generation to the next, the Americans have a history of faceplanting in best-on-best events, and they need to convince me they won’t do it again. Canada has the types of legendary stars who can take over the games by themselves and also features a group of true winners, including 15 players with Stanley Cup rings. They haven’t lost a best-on-best event since 2006, so the crown still feels like theirs until someone snatches it.

_____

POST SPONSORED BY bet365