An analytical assessment of the 4 Nations Face-Off rosters

St. Louis Blues defenseman Colton Parayko (55) checks Florida Panthers center Sam Bennett (9) during the first period at Enterprise Center.

Credit: © Jeff Curry

The Canadian, American, Swedish, and Finnish rosters for the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off have finally been revealed, and everybody is talking about them. While some selections could be seen from a mile away, several players were surprise selections to many. Of course, that’s always the case with some international rosters, as teams try to bring in a bunch of players that can play in different roles and provide different skill sets.

So now that we know the rosters for all four teams, let’s take a deep dive into the numbers to see what each team brings to the table, and what their strengths and weaknesses will be. It’s the first time in a while that Canada is not the clear-cut favourite with NHL players on the roster, so everything is up in the air, and whatever edge one team has over another can be a difference maker.

(I’m doing this analysis under the assumption that these are the exact rosters that each team will bring to the tournament in February. Of course, that probably won’t be the case, as injuries will occur to some of the players, but we can’t really account for that until it actually happens.)

Note: All advanced stats come courtesy of Evolving Hockey and are from players’ 2021-22 to 2024-25 seasons unless specified).

Canada

Biggest Strengths: Diverse Skillsets, Top-End Talent,
Biggest Weaknesses: Goaltending, Overthinking the roster

Death, taxes, and Canadian international teams overthinking their rosters just a bit too much. In their defense, it has worked in the past at the big stage, with Canada winning the 2010 and 2014 Olympics and the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, but they also had the depth to overthink their rosters a little bit, with their fringe players still being better than what other teams could provide. But other Olympic tournaments like 1998 or 2006, or even more recent World Junior tournaments where Canada has applied the same logic and other teams had the depth to match them, it has proven to burn them just as much as it’s succeeded. This year, they have opponents that can match them.

It’s not that Canada has any outright bad skaters on their roster, it’s just that some players have flaws, and Canada has the player pool to pick players without those flaws. Sam Bennett is solid offensively (26.1 offensive goals above replacement) and having a good year, but is middling defensively (-0.1 GAR), and is also quite undisciplined (-1.9 penalty GAR). Anthony Cirelli is elite defensively (8.4 defensive GAR), but that doesn’t translate to the penalty kill (only a 1.4 PK GAR), while Travis Konecny isn’t good defensively at even strength (-13.1) or shorthanded (-1.5). Brad Marchand is quite notorious for his two-way play and feistiness in the past, but is a shell of his former self this year (1.6 GAR in 2024-25), and Canada may have reached when selecting him in the summer. Even offensive talents like Sidney Crosby (-11.3 defensive GAR) and Brayden Point (-10.5) have been rough defensively in recent years, even though you still take them on this team.

The same goes for Canada’s blueline, where only Cale Makar and Devon Toews come out as good at both ends of the ice. Colton Parayko struggles offensively (-4.2 offensive GAR), while Alex Pietrangelo (-7.4 defensive GAR) and Shea Theodore (-1.4) struggle defensively, and Josh Morrissey (0.9) and Travis Sanheim (2) barely break even. Sure, you can mix and match these players and possibly make it work, but considering the fact that Canada’s goaltending will be the weakest it’s been in decades and easily the worst tandem of the tournament, you would hope that you can get more air-tight defensive options to help them out.

I won’t go too in-depth into Canada’s goaltending since it’s a topic that’s been talked about to exhaustion, but while Sam Montembeault has the opportunity to be a sneaky good goalie for them, Jordan Binnington and Adin Hill have been a bit too inconsistent for my liking to counter with what they bring in experience. It felt like the play of Cam Talbot, Logan Thompson and Mackenzie Blackwood both now and in the past few years made them better options.

That said, I’m making Canada’s situation sound much worse than it likely is. They still have some of the best talent in the league in Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Makar, Crosby, among others. They have some elite two-way forwards like Sam Reinhart, Mark Stone and Mitch Marner (and Seth Jarvis brings a lot more to that table than people think). This team can very easily win the tournament with some of that Canada magic that always seems to do the trick, even when they don’t fully optimize their roster.

But, Canada does have some weak spots when they have the ability to ice a near-perfect roster, and with the obvious flaw in net, they really should have tried to be perfect. Whether that’s bringing in more offensive talent like John Tavares, Robert Thomas and Carter Verhaeghe, or going with better two-way defensemen like Evan Bouchard, Jared Spurgeon and Chris Tanev, there were some superior names left on the table. You can see what Canada was going for with feistier players like Konecny, Bennett, and Parayko to match the Tkachuks, but when you’re designing your team to counter another team instead of playing to your strengths, you’re leaving a lot of your fate up to chance.

Finland

Biggest Strengths: Goaltending
Biggest Weaknesses: Blueline, Depth, 2nd Power play unit, Talent

It’s safe to say that Finland has the weakest roster in the tournament, at least from a top-to-bottom standpoint. They do have some excellent players on the roster, like Aleksander Barkov, Mikko Rantanen, Miro Heiskanen and Juuse Saros, but the further down the depth chart you go, this becomes a team that has the depth of a typical NHL team, and there are probably a few NHL teams that can match it.

That issue is particularly relevant on Finland’s blueline, which has a solid top two in Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell but steeply drops off after that. There are some options who have shown flashes over the years like Juuso Valimaki and Rasmus Ristolainen, but beyond that we’re looking at defensemen who would see themselves as a bottom pair or seventh defenseman on a good team in Jani Hakanpaa, Niko Mikkola and Olli Maatta. Ultimately, Finland only has two defensemen that have more than 25 GAR, which is far below what the other three teams have.

The blueline issue also bleeds into Finland’s lack of options on their power play, particularly their second unit. Heiskanen has been an excellent power play defenseman with a 6.5 PP GAR, but beyond him, Valimaki’s 4.4 is the only one above 0.5. Valimaki isn’t a name that jumps out as a power play specialist either, so unless Finland is running Heiskanen for the full two minutes, they’ll lose a bit of a dynamic on that second unit from the back end.

That also applies to Finland’s forward group on the power play as well. Their top unit will have some strong options up top with Rantanen, Barkov, Hintz and Aho all boasting PP GARs over 10, and Granlund not far behind at 8.2. But after that, nobody goes higher than 4, leaving that second unit leaving a lot to be desired in a tournament as stacked as this one (although Patrik Laine’s shot should still provide some value on that unit).

If there is one silver lining for this roster, it’s that Finland’s goaltending, while not the deepest, is still quite strong. Juuse Saros is one of the best goalies in the league right now, with a 73.98 goals saved above expected that sits fourth among goalies in that span, and will need to play at that level to keep Finland in any game in this tournament. Ukko-Pekka Luukonen hasn’t been excellent for quite as long, but since his breakout season in 2023-24, he’s been eighth in GSAx with 25.58, while Kevin Lankinen has quietly been a strong backup goalie since 2022-23 with a 31st-ranked 14.79 GSAx in that span and is finally getting that recognition as the temporary starter for the Canucks.

Sweden

Biggest Strengths: Blueline, Discipline, Offense, Goaltending
Biggest Weaknesses: Defense, Penalty Kill

If there’s one thing I will certainly give Sweden credit for, it’s the fact that they didn’t overthink their roster selections. While you could argue that Hampus Lindholm should have made the team if not for his injury, or that Fabian Zetterlund or William Eklund should have been given some consideration over Viktor Arvidsson or Gustav Nyquist considering their starts to the year, this lineup is made up mostly of the clear-cut best players Sweden has to offer, something that Canada and USA can’t exactly say.

This is especially the case on Sweden’s blueline, which is one of the best that we’ve seen from them, and will certainly challenge Canada and USA for the best of the tournament. Six of Sweden’s seven defensemen rank in the top 45 in GAR, while the one that didn’t (Rasmus Dahlin with 22) was only in 52nd due to a poor 2021-22 season. That said, Dahlin still ranks higher than Alex Pietrangelo (16), Travis Sanheim (15.2) and Brock Faber (15.1), although he also has an extra two years on Faber.

If there is any flaw on Sweden’s blueline, it’s the fact that two of their best defensemen in Erik Karlsson and Victor Hedman are also their worst defensively. Only Rasmus Andersson’s -10 defensive GAR is worse than Karlsson’s -7.9 and Hedman’s -7.1, and you just know that the two are going to be eating a lot of minutes for this Sweden team. It’d be smart to pair them with a more defensive-oriented defender like Mattias Ekholm, Jonas Brodin or Gustav Forsling to cancel that out, but if Hedman and Karlsson end up on the same pair, it might be a weakness other teams can exploit.

Sweden’s defensive issues carry over to their forward group, as they have a lot of forwards who bring elite offensive talent, but have poor defensive metrics. Jesper Bratt (51.9 offensive GAR), William Nylander (42.6), Mika Zibanejad (31.7), Nyquist (18.7), Lucas Raymond (18.9) and Arvidsson (18.7) are all excellent offensively, but all find themselves with a negative defensive GAR in that same time span. That said, Sweden still has some excellent defensive forwards like William Karlsson (9.4), Joel Eriksson Ek (6), Elias Pettersson (6) and Filip Forsberg (3.8), so as long as they pair those players properly, they should be fine. And all of those defensive-minded forwards can still bring it offensively as well.

As for Sweden’s goaltending, they went 3-for-3 in terms of who they needed to pick. Linus Ullmark (53.26), Jacob Markstrom (47.41) and Filip Gustavsson (20.56) are the three best goaltenders in terms of GSAx, with the next closest goalie being Anton Forsberg’s 7.61. It’s probably the closest any team will get to challenging the USA’s depth in net, and it’s an excellent three-way tandem that doesn’t have a clear-cut favourite, and you could maybe make the case that each one should start in the round robin.

USA

Biggest Strengths: Depth at all three positions, Elite two-way talents
Biggest Weaknesses: Penalty Kill experience

USA find themselves in an unfamiliar position where they appear to be the favourites going into this tournament. While they didn’t maximize their roster quite like the Swedes did, it also felt like USA didn’t go off the board quite as much as the Canadians did, and that gives them the best depth overall considering their pool of players to choose from. USA has got offensive talent for days, whether that’s driving success at 5v5 or on the power play, or when it just comes to scoring goals and getting assists, and all of their players have done so against top competition. Ultimately, not a single player on the team has a negative offensive GAR, and the only players who are below 20 are Brock Faber (who’s only played 109 games) and Jaccob Slavin (who more than makes up for it with his defense).

One issue that appears glaring for me is this USA roster’s inexperience on the penalty kill. Only four defensemen have averaged more than 2 minutes per game on the penalty kill: Jaccob Slavin (2:54), Brock Faber (2:41), Charlie McAvoy and Noah Hanifin (both 2:07). Along with that, only five forwards have averaged more than 1 minute per game: J.T. Miller (1:38), Chris Kreider (1:36), Vincent Trocheck (1:27), Dylan Larkin (1:20) and Jack Eichel (1:03).

It’s enough to run two units, but you aren’t leaving much room for error beyond that. Some players like Auston Matthews, Adam Fox and Zach Werenski have gotten more time in that regard this season, so there are certainly some other options, but considering that USA left off players like Tage Thompson, Cole Caufield, Clayton Keller, or Jake Sanderson for the purpose of bringing in role players, they didn’t do nearly a good enough job of getting those roles filled. That’s burned USA in the past (we’re looking at you, 2016 World Cup roster), so you hope that it doesn’t again.

At the very least, this team is good enough defensively that some players can fill that role in a crunch. They do have some forwards who are a bit lacking defensively like Kyle Connor (-16.4 defensive GAR), J.T. Miller (-12.7), Jake Guentzel (-8.2), Dylan Larkin (-8.2), Brock Nelson (-6.4) and Brady Tkachuk (-6.2), pretty much every defenseman on their blueline is dominant defensively (except for Werenski’s -0.4 and Hanifin’s 0.1), and they also have some strong defensive forwards like Boldy (10.8), Matthews (10.5), Eichel (4.8) and Trocheck (2.1), with Jack Hughes’ defensive game also picking up this season (2.3).

And that’s not even taking into consideration about the goalies behind them. Connor Hellebuyck, Jake Oettinger and Jeremy Swayman are three of the seven best goalies eligible for the 4 Nations Face-Off in GSAx, and one of those goalies was one they also could have selected in Anthony Stolarz. That is absurd depth at the position, and should strike fear in any other team, because even if Hellebuyck (who is first) falters, they can just throw in Oettinger and Swayman and they’ll be just as tough to beat.

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An analytical assessment of the 4 Nations Face-Off rosters

Canada

Finland

Sweden

USA

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