Has the 4 Nations Face-Off hurt player performance?
The 2024-25 NHL season should live on for a long time. It may go down as the season in which Alex Ovechkin breaks Wayne Gretzky’s record; we’ll see. But even if it doesn’t, it will be remembered as the season that revived best-on-best hockey, with the passionate, epic 4 Nations Face-Off pole-vaulting way above expectations.
Looking back, it’s almost silly that any of us doubted whether the players would take the event too seriously. Delivering seven games of spirited hockey, they went to overtime in three of those contests and, of course, Canada and USA delivered two epic and bloody battles, the first of which opened with three fights in nine seconds.
But did the players at the 4 Nations push it too hard? That was the question after the tournament left high-impact players such as USA’s Matthew Tkachuk and Charlie McAvoy and Canada’s Shea Theodore with major injuries. And it continues to be a question as we evaluate the performance of each 4 Nations participant in the month-plus since the tournament ended.
Did the 4 Nations Face-Off sap the sport’s best Canadian, Finnish, Swedish and American players of valuable energy and, in turn, productivity during the stretch run? It has been raised anecdotally when referencing Player X or Y’s slump in local markets, but let’s find out if it’s true.
We’ll start by looking at how top skaters have performed before vs. after the 4 Nations. They’re sorted here by their rank in points per 60 minutes at all strengths through Feb. 9, when the NHL played its final slate before the break.
Top 50 skaters, before and after 4 Nations Face-Off
| Name | p/60 before | p/60 after | change | xGF% before | xGF% after | change |
| Nikita Kucherov | 4.34 | 3.78 | -0.56 | 62.77 | 63.91 | 1.14 |
| Nathan MacKinnon | 3.97 | 3.72 | -0.25 | 62.49 | 67.67 | 5.18 |
| Connor McDavid | 3.92 | 3.72 | -0.2 | 64.87 | 64.87 | 0 |
| Kyle Connor | 3.68 | 2.94 | -0.74 | 55.48 | 52.61 | -2.87 |
| Mitch Marner | 3.66 | 2.72 | -0.94 | 51.36 | 52.61 | 1.25 |
| Jack Eichel | 3.57 | 4.42 | 0.85 | 56.25 | 55.02 | -1.23 |
| Jesper Bratt | 3.57 | 3.99 | 0.42 | 62.36 | 50.04 | -12.32 |
| Mark Stone | 3.54 | 3.04 | -0.5 | 61.26 | 52.92 | -8.34 |
| Brayden Point | 3.53 | 2.11 | -1.42 | 59.19 | 62.2 | 3.01 |
| Lucas Raymond | 3.4 | 2.19 | -1.21 | 60.02 | 60.19 | 0.17 |
| Auston Matthews | 3.29 | 3.49 | 0.2 | 53.57 | 53.63 | 0.06 |
| Aleksander Barkov | 3.27 | 2.48 | -0.79 | 57.92 | 67.33 | 9.41 |
| Jack Hughes | 3.27 | 2.87 | -0.4 | 65.55 | 56.06 | -9.49 |
| Mikko Rantanen | 3.24 | 1.94 | -1.3 | 60.94 | 58.2 | -2.74 |
| Sam Reinhart | 3.21 | 2.58 | -0.63 | 58.05 | 67.33 | 9.28 |
| Brandon Hagel | 3.18 | 3.17 | -0.01 | 59.04 | 65.85 | 6.81 |
| Filip Forsberg | 3.14 | 2.5 | -0.64 | 60.11 | 60.85 | 0.74 |
| Sidney Crosby | 3.11 | 3.88 | 0.77 | 58.61 | 53.73 | -4.88 |
| Travis Konecny | 3.1 | 1.28 | -1.82 | 54.09 | 51.19 | -2.9 |
| William Nylander | 3.03 | 4.26 | 1.23 | 60.09 | 61.48 | 1.39 |
| Jake Guentzel | 3 | 2.62 | -0.38 | 60.95 | 60.22 | -0.73 |
| Sebastian Aho | 2.97 | 1.95 | -1.02 | 59.7 | 56.93 | -2.77 |
| J.T. Miller | 2.89 | 3.17 | 0.28 | 55.39 | 54.93 | -0.46 |
| Seth Jarvis | 2.84 | 1.82 | -1.02 | 57.18 | 61.69 | 4.51 |
| Dylan Larkin | 2.72 | 2.27 | -0.45 | 58.45 | 58.28 | -0.17 |
| Rickard Rakell | 2.68 | 2.63 | -0.05 | 57.75 | 56.92 | -0.83 |
| Adrian Kempe | 2.68 | 2.25 | -0.43 | 53.28 | 51.44 | -1.84 |
| Teuvo Teravainen | 2.61 | 3.15 | 0.54 | 48.99 | 49.74 | 0.75 |
| Patrik Laine | 2.6 | 4.29 | 1.69 | 47.29 | 67.17 | 19.88 |
| Matt Boldy | 2.59 | 2.17 | -0.42 | 60.93 | 55.33 | -5.6 |
| Cale Makar | 2.57 | 3.06 | 0.49 | 55.43 | 58.43 | 3 |
| Mikael Granlund | 2.55 | 1.96 | -0.59 | 46.03 | 44.72 | -1.31 |
| Brady Tkachuk | 2.53 | 3.14 | 0.61 | 62.42 | 64.89 | 2.47 |
| Anthony Cirelli | 2.51 | 2.03 | -0.48 | 53.73 | 60.41 | 6.68 |
| Brad Marchand | 2.5 | 2.68 | 0.18 | 57.75 | 75.01 | 17.26 |
| Roope Hintz | 2.5 | 6.19 | 3.69 | 57.44 | 62.1 | 4.66 |
| Zach Werenski | 2.39 | 1.53 | -0.86 | 54.71 | 56.29 | 1.58 |
| Shea Theodore | 2.38 | 2.98 | 0.6 | 60.23 | 53.29 | -6.94 |
| Anton Lundell | 2.3 | 1.61 | -0.69 | 51.24 | 58.34 | 7.1 |
| Kaapo Kakko | 2.27 | 1.84 | -0.43 | 54.7 | 51.86 | -2.84 |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 2.25 | 2 | -0.25 | 55.69 | 53.36 | -2.33 |
| Sam Bennett | 2.23 | 2.84 | 0.61 | 59.87 | 69.66 | 9.79 |
| Elias Pettersson | 2.2 | 2.48 | 0.28 | 58.97 | 52.73 | -6.24 |
| Mika Zibanejad | 2.2 | 2.11 | -0.09 | 50.23 | 57.05 | 6.82 |
| Victor Hedman | 2.12 | 1.79 | -0.33 | 55.16 | 57.99 | 2.83 |
| Artturi Lehkonen | 2.07 | 2.16 | 0.09 | 55.3 | 65.76 | 10.46 |
| Josh Morrissey | 2.06 | 1.4 | -0.66 | 55.53 | 61.72 | 6.19 |
| Adam Fox | 2.05 | 2.42 | 0.37 | 56.57 | 51.24 | -5.33 |
| Brock Nelson | 1.99 | 3.27 | 1.28 | 51.61 | 49.95 | -1.66 |
| AVERAGE | 2.862653061 | 2.752857143 | -0.1097959 | 57.0722449 | 58.2681633 | 1.19591837 |
Stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick
Looking at the pure point production, before and after the 4 Nations you can feel the player population coughing and wheezing. On average, we saw a 3.84 percent reduction in points per 60 at all strengths among that group, but extreme spikes for Patrik Laine and Roope Hintz skew that number to look milder than it is. The more important takeaway: 30 of 50 players in this sample, or 60 percent, have seen their scoring plummet, including eight of the top 10 scorers in points per 60 before the tournament.
But the scoring numbers don’t tell the whole story. What about the defensive side of the game? Do we see a similar decline in on-ice play driving? The answer is no. Only 22 of those top 50 players, or 44 percent, have experienced drops in their on-ice expected goals against per 60 at all strengths. On average, we saw a slight increase in expected goal share, albeit once again heavily skewed by Laine’s huge turnaround.
So how is it that the majority of the 4 Nations’ top offensive players are scoring less but, according to the two-way data, not actually playing worse? It could be a result of the stretch-run play league wide being a bit tighter and more competitive. We’re seeing the fewest power-play opportunities per game in NHL history, and the fewest shots on goal per game since 2003-04, the final season of the Dead Puck Era. The expected goal data still tells us the chance quality is there, but it’s becoming harder to finish. We’ve also seen a tiny uptick in save percentage league-wide since the start of the season, at least back north of .900, so the goalies could be clamping things down.
Well, some of the goalies. Maybe not those who burned some of their stamina at the 4 Nations. Let’s look at the performance trend before and after the tournament among the eight netminders who actually saw game action in Montreal and Boston, sorted by top save percentage heading into the tournament.
Goaltenders, before and after 4 Nations Face-Off
| Name | SV% before | SV% after | change |
| Connor Hellebuyck | 0.925 | 0.918 | -0.007 |
| Filip Gustavsson | 0.915 | 0.926 | 0.011 |
| Linus Ullmark | 0.915 | 0.892 | -0.023 |
| Jake Oettinger | 0.911 | 0.904 | -0.007 |
| Kevin Lankinen | 0.905 | 0.885 | -0.02 |
| Juuse Saros | 0.898 | 0.898 | 0 |
| Jordan Binnington | 0.897 | 0.912 | 0.015 |
| Samuel Ersson | 0.896 | 0.84 | -0.056 |
| AVERAGE | 0.90775 | 0.896875 | -0.010875 |
Five of eight 4 Nations goalies, or 62.5 percent, have seen their save percentage decline since play resumed Feb. 22, and the average between the group dropped from .908 to .897. The Nashville Predators’ Juuse Saros broke even, so only two goaltenders actually improved their SV%. Among the four “starters” who led their nations in appearances, only the St. Louis Blues’ Jordan Binnington, who backstopped Canada to the title, improved his mark.
So if we’re looking for a link between the 4 Nations and fatigue, it ties strongly to the puck-stoppers, albeit in a minuscule sample of eight players. It makes sense in this modern era; the position has never been more physically taxing to play, and goaltenders rarely play back to back games or make it to 60 starts. Introducing an extra component to their season-long workload seems to have hurt the group as a whole.
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Overall, the 4 Nations fatigue factor seems slightly exaggerated. It’s true that the players aren’t lighting up the scoresheet, but they’re playing sounder all-around games on average, tightening their play for crucial games on the schedule as they jockey for playoff spots. The goaltenders have mostly regressed, but the goalie who played the most minutes at the tournament has played the best hockey since.
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POST SPONSORED BY bet365
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