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Greg Wyshynski
Jack Eichel has been starving. The 4 Nations Face-Off is his sustenance.
The Vegas Golden Knights center said he has waited years for another “best-on-best” hockey tournament for himself and his peers. “The generation of the players that are currently in the NHL haven’t had that opportunity to all play together,” he told ESPN.
The NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off brings together four hockey powers — the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland — in a midseason tournament played in Montreal and Boston. Now Eichel gets to wear the red, white and blue with Auston Matthews and Jack Hughes. Connor McDavid gets to wear the maple leaf next to Nathan MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby. William Nylander shares a Swedish locker room with Victor Hedman and Erik Karlsson. Aleksander Barkov can sling passes to Mikko Rantanen and Patrik Laine.
The players acknowledge the 4 Nations Face-Off is more borne out of necessity — a combination of compressed scheduling and the conundrum of Russian participation — than an ideal best-on-best event.
“Obviously it’s not exactly what we want in terms of … we’re missing some great teams. I think of the Germany or Switzerland or the Czechs, so many different teams,” McDavid told ESPN. “But it’s just exciting to have best-on-best again. You know, four great teams. It’ll be a pretty fun competition and a prelude to the Olympics.”
How will the 4 Nations Face-Off play out, starting tonight with Canada vs. Sweden at Bell Centre?
Spoiler warning: It’ll play out exactly like what I’ve written below. Or maybe it won’t. Either way, enjoy 4 Nations!
Wednesday: Canada 4, Sweden 3 (OT)
There isn’t a more slept-on group in the 4 Nations Face-Off than the Swedish defense corps.
Gustav Forsling gives Rasmus Dahlin the best defense partner he has had in his career. Victor Hedman still has the ability to carry any partner, but Jonas Brodin on Team Sweden is a step up from J.J. Moser and Darren Raddysh with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Then there’s Mattias Ekholm and Erik Karlsson, in a quintessential pairing that includes one man who knows how to keep the house in order while his partner is freestyling down the ice.
Whatever success the Swedes have in this tournament likely begins on the blue line, with a defense that will have to play well in its own end and help its forwards win a possession battle against the more offensively potent Canadians. Frankly, everything else is a wild card based on regular-season results.
Linus Ullmark is a very good goaltender. He has also given up seven goals in two games since returning from injury for Ottawa and doesn’t exactly have the best reputation as a big-game netminder (.887 save percentage in 20 Stanley Cup playoff games). Filip Gustavsson has been the better goalie lately, going 4-1-0 in his past five starts for Minnesota, but is he “steal a game from Canada” good?
Where have you gone, Henrik Lundqvist?
The forward group is also a wild card. Key players like Elias Pettersson, Mika Zibanejad and Elias Lindholm have been off their offensive marks this season. But if they get going, there’s a lot of goal-scoring potential here with players like William Nylander, Jesper Bratt and Lucas Raymond reenergizing the Swedish attack.
All of this is to say that I think the Swedes give the Canadians a game in the tournament opener. They’re not ones to be overwhelmed by hostile environs. But the Canadians will have to work out the kinks in front of a raucous Montreal crowd with high expectations. That’s when sticks are gripped a little tighter and a pass or two is attempted when they shouldn’t.
So here’s saying the Swedes put a scare into Canada with a third-period lead, only to have the home team knot things up to send the game to overtime. It’s not exactly a bold prediction to say that Connor McDavid ends things there, but we’ll predict it anyway. Canada losses a chance at a three-point game, but exhales a bit before its showdown with the Americans.
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Everything you need to know about the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off
Here is everything you need to know about the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off beginning on Feb. 12.
Thursday: USA 5, Finland 2
Under different circumstances, this is the trap game of all trap games for the United States — trying to get up for a tournament opener against Finland, with Canada looming in 48 hours. But this isn’t a typical American men’s hockey team, nor is it the usual squad for Finland.
You’d have to go back to the 1996 World Cup of Hockey to find a U.S. roster filled with this kind of offensive talent. Back then it was Pat LaFontaine, Brett Hull, Mike Modano and Keith Tkachuk. Now it’s Eichel, Auston Matthews, Jack Hughes and double the Tkachuks, with Keith’s boys Brady and Matthew. That’s not even discussing the offense coming from the back end with players like Adam Fox and Zach Werenski — although the loss of the injured Quinn Hughes certainly brings that down a notch.
Of course, Finland isn’t shedding a tear about someone else’s injured defenseman. No other team in the tournament has suffered the injury losses of the Finnish defense corps. They’re without Miro Heiskanen of the Dallas Stars, easily their No. 1 defenseman, as well as Rasmus Ristolainen of the Philadelphia Flyers and Jani Hakanpaa of the Toronto Maple Leafs. What was already a pretty thin group now has Urho Vaakanainen (15:26 of ice time per game for the Rangers) and Nikolas Matinpalo (12:00 per game with the Senators) as defensive options in front of either Juuse Saros or Kevin Lankinen in goal.
The Finns still have their share of offense stars (Aleksander Barkov, Sebastian Aho and Mikko Rantanen) and tenacious forwards who could give the Americans some trouble. They never go quietly, despite the talent disparity.
However, this has to be a statement game for Team USA, one in which they respond to tenacity with tenacity from down the lineup while flexing their offensive muscles. If this is anything other than a launch pad toward their showdown with Canada and a three-point standings win, some doubts will start creeping in.
Saturday: Sweden 5, Finland 3
Let’s be real: There’s a certain amount of “this tournament was created to guarantee USA vs. Canada on a Saturday night at Bell Centre” inherent in the 4 Nations Face-Off. The fans feel it. Those players feel it. And the Swedes and Finns feel it — and are frankly OK with it.
“If they want to put us in the shade a little bit, I don’t mind that at all,” Sweden’s Filip Forsberg said about being in the shadow of that battle of the titans. “It’s exciting just getting best-on-best again. It’s been way too long since we had that.”
While North American hockey fans are focused on USA vs. Canada on Saturday night, the afternoon affair between Sweden and Finland is the main attraction across the globe. While their other games are at odd times back home, this matchup is in prime time. The players know the fans will be watching. Bragging rights in this storied rivalry are very much on the line.
“Yeah, I think it’s big. I’m expecting it’s going to be big because since 2016 this is the first best-on-best tournament event,” Rantanen told ESPN. “It’s a smaller version, but still, I think Finnish people are excited.”
Rantanen said that Finland “might be the underdog in the tournament for sure” compared to the other three teams. “I think Finland will usually be an underdog behind U.S. and Canada,” he said, “and maybe more even with Sweden.”
So Finland knows this is likely its best shot at a W in the tournament and will play accordingly. The Finns won’t be an easy out. But the Swedes have a bit more going for them offensively and a lot more going for them on the blue line. Given what’s in net for both, this isn’t going to be the goaltending nail-biter like the one the teams had in the 2016 World Cup, when Lundqvist outdueled Tuukka Rask. Instead, it’ll be a wild afternoon affair that’ll delight the fans back home. Well, mostly the ones in Sweden.
Saturday: Canada 3, USA 2
Since 2000, the U.S. and Canada have faced each other 47 times in the IIHF world junior championships, the IIHF world championships, the World Cup of Hockey and the Winter Olympics. The Americans are 16-31 in those games, including two losses in the World Cup and a 2-2-1 record in the Olympics.
Even as the U.S. has upped its talent level at every position and holds a distinct advantage in goal, this is still Canada. Still the most impressive assemblage of superstar talent in hockey. Its first power-play unit is McDavid, Crosby, MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Sam Reinhart. How do you even attempt to stop that?
“I would probably put three goalies in the net and just let them try to do the job,” Team Canada’s Brad Marchand said this week.
The Americans will rely on one: Connor Hellebuyck, the best goaltender in the world two seasons running, and the reason the U.S. is running roughly even with the Canadians as far as being favorites in the tournament. Like Ryan Miller and Jonathan Quick before him, Hellebuyck has a chance to enhance an already sterling reputation with success on the international stage. He won’t be the reason the Americans lose to Canada. But they will lose to Canada.
The Americans can stand toe-to-toe with their archrivals for the first time in 30 years when it comes to forward depth. Even their grunts are accomplished scorers, like Brock Nelson and Vincent Trocheck. They can score with Canada and skate with Canada. If Canada wants to deploy the likes of Marchand and Travis Konecny to pester Team USA’s skill players, well, the U.S. has some Tkachuks for that.
Losing Quinn Hughes hurts. That’s a defender competing at an MVP level, one who could skate the Americans out of trouble when the Canadian forecheckers start arriving in waves. But overall, the American blue line is deeper than the Canadian one (especially with Alex Pietrangelo deciding to rest up for the remainder of the NHL season instead).
The biggest advantage for the U.S. is the Hellebuyck vs. Jordan Binnington matchup in goal, but I’m a little more bullish on Binnington than most. They just need one good game from him, in back of an All-Star team. He gives the St. Louis Blues a quality start around 53% of the time. Canada just needs him to not be a liability.
The unpredictable factor here is the environment. Montreal, Bell Centre, 20,000 fans waving little Canadian flags and likely booing the U.S. national anthem if recent precedent in other Canadian NHL cities holds. Does an environment like this turbocharge the Canadians, or create palpable nerves if there’s a bad start? Does it cause a young Team USA to crack, or does the hostility coalesce them?
There’s a lot of conjecture about the quality of play in this midseason tournament and how much effort the players will give in an exhibition. I can’t speak for the rest of the games, but both contests on Saturday night will feature Pavlovian responses to the jerseys on the other end of the ice. It will be a great day of hockey and for hockey.
And it’ll be Canada’s night. That’s not the end of the tournament — or the world — for the Americans. In fact, I’d wager it’s a great life experience on the road to a much more important tournament in Italy next winter.
The Canadian leg of the 4 Nations Face-Off ends with Canada earning five points, Sweden earning four points, the U.S. earning three points and Finland with a goose egg.
Monday: Canada 6, Finland 2
Finland comes to Boston knowing that the math ain’t mathing for a spot in the championship final, unable to catch either Canada or Sweden in the round-robin portion.
Canada rolls into this one with a spot in the championship in reach, and doesn’t waste the chance. The Canadians jump on the Finns early, using their enormous depth advantage at forward and on defense to establish a multigoal lead in the first period.
McDavid has a three-point game and Marchand scores, to the thrill of the Boston fans. Canada advances to the final for the fifth time in six best-on-best tournament appearances, with Torino 2006 as its only stumble.
Monday: USA 4, Sweden 2
The U.S. enters this game needing a win of any kind against Sweden to advance to the championship. Obviously, a regulation win would put it ahead of the Swedes in points (6-4). An overtime/shootout win would tie them with five points, but the first tiebreaker in the 4 Nations Face-Off is “the head-to-head result between those two tied teams,” and hence the Americans would advance.
Which, in fact, they will.
The scene in Boston is the inverse of that in Montreal, as American patriotism oozes from every corner of TD Garden. The home-ice advantage fuels the U.S. attack. Matthews and Eichel have their best games of the tournament against Ullmark, who becomes even more acquainted with losing big games on Boston ice.
Charlie McAvoy pops the Bruins fans with a thunderous open-ice check on a Swedish forward. Matthew Tkachuk confuses Bruins fans with a goal and an assist, as they cheer their most loathed antagonist. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief that the Americans not only rise to the occasion in a must-win game, but do so in regulation to set up what everyone wants to see.
Feb. 20: USA 3, Canada 2 (OT)
The first Olympics I ever covered as a journalist was the 2010 Vancouver Games, which was as close to a hockey utopia as I’ve experienced.
Waking up every day to hit the rink for morning group play games, surrounded by Latvian fans that were, ahem, already in the right mindset. Watching Jaromir Jagr play, at what was thought to be his advanced age, and then watching Alex Ovechkin obliterate him with a check. Norway had a player named Tore Vikingstad, which still feels a little too on the nose.
But mostly I remember two moments. On Feb. 21, Ryan Kesler scored an empty-net goal with 45 seconds remaining to give the U.S. a 5-3 win over Canada in group play, to the shock and dismay of the home crowd. I remember clandestine fist bumps between American writers as we made our way to the postgame interviews, as international hockey tournaments remain safe havens for rooting interests.
The other moment was on Feb. 28, when Sidney Crosby converted a Jarome Iginla pass in overtime for what would be known as the Golden Goal, defeating the U.S. in the championship game in a storybook ending for Canada. It was, to this day, the best and worst day of my life as an American hockey fan.
The worst because this preeminent chance to finally get one over on Canada was squandered. The best because on my long, sullen walk back to my housing, I saw so many Canadian fans celebrating in the streets, euphoric and filled with pride. It made me happy for them. It meant so much more to them than it did me.
As Eichel said, the 4 Nations Face-Off “is not an Olympics … but I just think it’s a great event, not only for the players but for the fans and for the game.”
The U.S. defeating Canada for a newly forged trophy and a gold medal celebration doesn’t balance the scales between the hockey powers. But it does provide a moment of elation, pride and, most of all, growth for USA Hockey ahead of 2026.
The Americans hung with Canada in Montreal, enough to gain confidence. Their chemistry developed in each game. Modano once told me the difference between the Americans and the Canadians in these best-on-best tournaments is the ability of Canadian stars to check their egos and accept their roles. After three games, I’d expect coach Mike Sullivan’s staff to have inherently defined those roles and the American players to have adapted to them.
Naturally, the final battle between the two titans of the tournament once again goes to extra time, where the Americans stake their claim to “best in the world in best-on-best” with a definitive win over the Canadians.
While a goal by Jake Guentzel would be delightfully ironic after his former linemate Crosby’s heroics in 2010, the tournament-clinching goal could only come from the stick of Matthew Tkachuk — to the surprise of no one in Boston.
The 4 Nations Face-Off ends with the “Star-Spangled Banner” being played — and getting a much different reaction than in Montreal — as U.S. players start to legitimately dream about another gold medal in the offering next year.