The Athletic Hockey Show - 4 Nations Face-Off positional rankings

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Hailey Salvian and Sean Gentille, along with Dom Luszczyszyn analyze the rankings, position by position for the 4-Nations face-off, slotting the forwards, defenders and goalies for Team Sweden, Finland, Canada and the United States.Hosts: Hailey Salvian and Sean GentilleWith Dom LuszczyszynExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff Domet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What's up, everybody? Welcome to another Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Haley and Sean Jintilly here with you after a two-week break. And it's a good timing, too. The rosters for the Four Nations face-off were announced on Wednesday. So we are back to break it all down. Sean, how are we feeling?

You got American Thanksgiving, now a Team USA roster. No, Thanksgiving, yes. How are we feeling? Sean's Thanksgiving. I feel great. We got our four nation frenzy roster spectacular last night. After which I learned that Canada should just fold up the tent and go home. I think that's like the prevailing narrative from Canadian media.

It seems like this team's coming into this tournament as the underdog, Haley. I don't know. Haley and Dom. I don't know if you guys know this. Well, I haven't. If they lose, if they lose, it's actually not. not that big of a deal. This is preemptive nonsense from, again, the foremost leaders in Canadian media.

They're driving down the expectations, so the loss will hurt a little bit less. Sure. Don't appreciate it. Okay. So to host the Canadian. They're trying to devalue the United States pending gold medal run or whatever they're, whatever they're getting here. Are they getting gold? Are we doing medals for this?

I actually don't know. Would it just be a trophy? Trophies? Does anyone ask that question? Has that been announced yet? I don't know. Anyways. To host the Canadian Hockey Summit,

it's Dom Lus Chishin. He's here for the show today to do exactly what Sean just said. Drive down the value of an American championship and figure out what's going on with Team Canada, the most important team in the world. I want to do the exact opposite. which is to say, if Canada loses this made-up tournament, it is a national disgrace that they let this happen.

You had a 200-year lead on the sport. You galaxy brain a bunch of decisions as usual, and now you enter the tournament as the second best team, which is cool, I guess, if you are not that great, but you're can. and you're always first and you're always first by a lot and this is just a bad place to be and it's not oh ho-hum I guess we're the underdogs here it's your Canada you should be the favorites what are we what are we doing here what is happening love it I was joking I was joking about the Canada Hockey Summit thing but it looks like we might end up having to to have one here I don't care like I'm not I'm not I'm not all that worried about about about about about the state of Canadian hockey. We're going to get more than enough of that over the next, you know, six weeks or eight

weeks or two years, three, or however long it lasts. We're going to get all we can, all we can eat from that, right? But it does seem like that is part of the narrative that's emerged as the, as the rosters have been officialized. It's like, oh, Katie, definitely the underdog coming into this. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't, you don't get to say that. You don't get off so easy.

I mean, they are. Yeah, but it's like, it's like, oh, you're a galaxy braining a Canada thing here. There was simply nothing. There was simply nothing. Sean, Sean. There was simply nothing that could be done here. People are not trying to like make the U.S. championship. They are.

They are. They are. I think people are legitimately angry that Canada's roster isn't the best. Yeah. And this is cope already. And in part of the, in part of the byproduct of that is that is that they are trying to devalue. and deflate the fact that the U.S. has the best roster in the tournament. I think people are,

this is sincere. People, like, people think that you might think this is like a take or something or that I'm, I mean, you're going off for like four minutes about it. This is real. Okay.

This is how I feel. I, I think it's really good that, uh, the U.S. is in its golden era and they have not only matched what Canada has, but genuinely surpassed them. But as a Canadian, I obviously hate it a lot. And it'll be a fantastic game in the round robin.

Maybe a fantastic game in the final. But it is, it's not fun on this side of the border. They got me here, man. Like, I didn't, I didn't think this was going to happen. I care about this tournament. I can't believe I believe I'm here. So that was kind of the big question is I'm going to be curious to see how many people care passionately. about it once it starts, I think they will.

I think, and I think if the men can finally start adding some juice to a Canada USA rivalry instead of just having the women have the best rivalry in hockey, then maybe more eyeballs will follow to. The men should try to have good rivalries.

Like there should be an annual Canada USA game just for bragging rights or annual Canada USA series. That's the Canadian women's rivalry series. Yeah, they should be doing not regularly. I thought that there should be some kind of, like before the Four Nations face off became

a thing. I thought there should have been some kind of gimmicky best on best, like do a Canada USA series, go somewhere, have like a world junior level, men's level and a women's level and just have them all play against each other in like a three game series or something. No, like have almost like a little mini tournament or whatever that had those age groups. I don't know. That was before Four Nations face off came about. You can't ask these guys to give up vacations too often.

That's ultimately what it comes down to. Nobody wants to do it. You can't be like, every year will have. Four nations face off. Right, but that's not going to be every single season. Like, I would love it. I would love it if there was some version of this that just took the place of the All-Star game every single year. That would rule.

But the guys would start saying no, because they're like, nah, I haven't been a Cabo in a while. I'm out. All right. Leave me off this. So Dom is also here, not just to talk about Canada, but he's also already provided a ranking of each roster. The ranking looks about as expected when we think about a traditional power ranking. USA is the team to beat as we discussed.

Sean seems angry about that. Canada's number two on paper. Sweden's third, Finland, four. But there's also specific positional breakdowns within the story, left wing, right wing center, lefty, right, de goalie. And we're going to focus more there this week. We'll rank the positions for all four rosters ahead of the tournament to see where the strengths and weaknesses are and maybe where some of those mistakes or galaxy brains, as Dom said, might be on each roster. We're not going to go into all six because that would make this a four-hour pod,

especially if Sean starts ranting again. So we're going to go forward, defense, goalie. We can preface this. It's never easy to make these rosters. It's never as simple as just taking the top scoring players and saying, okay, my work here is done, but that out of the way because we're going to start with the forwards. And maybe this comes as a surprise.

Maybe it doesn't. I say maybe it's a surprise because of how much we just talked about USA being the team to beat. Canada actually comes into the tournament on paper with the highest net rating for its forward group at plus 149. Team USA is second at 137, Sweden 3 at 96, and Finland 4th at 73. So Canada has the strongest forward group. It's the, I guess for Canada, the forwards are really just highlighted. It's the star power at the top of the lineup, right? And obviously there's talent up and down this lineup.

But when you can have the fixture of your team B. Connor McDavid. Oh, and by the way, Nathan McKinnon's on the second line. And so is Sidney Crosby. You're going to be okay. Dom, what do you think about Canada's forwards? Is this what potentially could make them a team to beat? Because their centers more specifically are ranked number one, and their right wings are ranked number one as well.

Yeah, I think this is where Canada has always had the most strength. They have a lot of firepower. They've always had the best player in the world. And now with McKinnon, they also have the second best player in the world. The emergence of Sam Reinhart as this guy was playing at an MVP level is, I think, a big deal for Canada. I think it gives them just another weapon. And I think a lot of people will look at some of the names and think that Canada left some talent at home, but it's like a growing identity of these annoying two-way grinding forwards

who are also elite scores and they're fast and they play hard with Brandon Hagle, Seth Jarvis, Travis Keneckney, even Sam Bennett. Like these guys might not seem like the most skilled players, but in this new NHL where we're looking at things outside of points. I think all four of them come across really well and give Canada's bottom six an identity that is extremely annoying to play against. Yeah, they found the guys on the second line

that can play well on the third and fourth line. Do you know what I mean? Like an elite, a high-end second line pieces, let's say, who profile well as the dudes that drop down in tournaments like this. And one of the first things I thought whenever the roster started a leak on Tuesday night or whatever that was. We got some net rating All-Stars on this.

Oh, yeah. Right? Like we got we got Jarvis and we got Hegel and we have guys who. Sorrelli too has been really good. Sorelli, absolutely. We have guys in this mix that you specifically have been gassing up maybe to a level above, I think, what you see from a lot of other people. And also that trickles down to power rentings and all the stuff that we do together.

like Brandon Hagel, I, like, I think maybe there was a certain amount of people that were surprised that he was such a lock for the roster. Like coming into it, it was like, okay, Brandon Hagel's got a spot. Like, let's move on and talk about, talk about who's behind him. I think there was maybe some degree of surprise there. And there shouldn't have been. Like, he is built for this roster in tournaments like this because he's, because he's a play driver. He's got, he's got some touch. He's got a ton of sandpaper.

He can skate. A guy like Brandon Higgins. Hagel is someone I look at and just, like as an American, as the guy who just whined for four minutes at the top of the show about the way that all this is being covered, I'm like, Brandon Hagel, man, two, two games against him. I'm not, I am not psyched about that. And they have a few other, a few other guys, the Jarvis is and Sorlis of the world. So I think that's part, and I think that's part of why I look at, you know, Canada's the underdog and da-da-da-da. I'm like, I'm like, I get it. I get why that's happening. We're going to talk about why that's happening, you know,

in specifics in a little bit here. But that group of forwards is just, it's impressive. It's impressive. And I'm not mad about, where I wouldn't be mad if I were Canadian, about how any part of the forward roster really was laid out. Yeah, with Hagell, too,

he had a very quiet 75 point season last year. And he was not in PowerPlay 1 for whatever reason. He was getting the Carter-Ber-Hagie treatment where they're just like, no, we're going to put Nick Paul here. and he still scored a lot of five and five, obviously playing with Kutraub helps, but this year he's on the second line with Sorelli, the shutdown line.

They take on the toughest defensive assignments. They are absolutely crushing opponents. And I think being able to produce at 5 and 5 the way Hegel has and being able to shut down opponents in that way makes him a lot more valuable than people realize. And then this year he's put on PowerPlay 1, and he has the production that makes him, him a no-brainer where I think he had that five-assist period, five-assist night, where it was just

like, okay, this guy's made it. That's it. That's all we need to see. So Canada obviously has the firepower throughout its lineup and that gritty identity, bottom six. But let's look at Team USA because that's the second best forward group heading into this tournament. And it's, it's going to be interesting to see how, and we'll get to the star players in the USA as well, but because we were talking about the bottom six in Canada. It's going to be interesting to see how like a Hagel, Sorrelli, Seth Jarvis combo of a bottom six looks up against a Kyle Connor, Dylan Larkin, Brady Kachuk, Vincent Trocheck, bottom six combo. The US, they have, those guys can play on the D side of the puckish, not, not as much. I wouldn't say that Brady Kachuk is a

defensive specimen on a bottom six by any means, but they've got a different flavor. for the bottom six on Team USA. It's different identity. That's going to be something that's going to be interesting to see is what ultimately ends up being the correct recipe for a top to bottom lineup. Yeah, it's interesting. I think USA has a lot of varying skill sets, and I think they can make a lot of pieces work and have that classic playmaker,

grinder, shooter kind of vibe. I do feel like they left some meat on the bone by leaving page Thompson at home. I don't mind Trocheck, Kreider, Nelson as players. I think they're really good. I think you bring one or two of them, and I understand why they're here. I just think with Canada's firepower being their strength, leaving someone like Thompson at home is not what I would have done. And I think, especially the Trocheque and Nelson thing, I think having both of them feels a bit redundant.

And I think I'd probably bring Nelson, leave Trochak at home. He's had a bit of a rough year. And you can question whether his amazing year last year, how much of that was just driven by playing with Artemian. And Thompson feels like a driver in his own right with what he's done in Buffalo on a weaker team. I agree with that. I think Chris Kreider has caught some strays here in the snub discussion too. And I get it. Terrible year.

He looks like he's in decline. Let's be real. How much of that has to do with Zabanajad, how much that has to do with him. I think that's up for debate. But that's another debate for another time. I like Chris Kreider and I've liked him for a long time. I'm fine with him getting an opportunity in a best on best tournament. He is one of those guys.

We've talked about this in some varying capacities over the last few weeks. There is an entire generation of players, Canadian, American, Sweden, Finnish, who have missed out on this. They've missed out on this exact kind of tournament because for varying reasons. What do you want to blame the IHA? Whoever. Blame whoever you want to blame. Chris Kreider is a really, really good player. It has been a very important player for USA hockey.

and he hasn't gotten this kind of opportunity. So if he's, you know, deserving maybe, maybe not, is he going to be in the Olympic? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Put the dude on the roster. He's done more than enough to merit it, even though he's, you know, in the middle of a total and complete nightmare season.

Now, is that enough to keep Tage off the roster? I don't think so. Like you said, I think there's some redundancy between the Nelson's and trochecks of the world. But if that's what it took to get some of those guys on the roster for this, it makes it a little bit of an easier pill to swallow from it. And while you guys were going into the Tage versus Kreider, Trocheck Nelson, I did just look at the defensive rating specifically of Canada and U.S.'s bottom six.

Not that it's everything, but Canada's bottom six forwards, D rating alone is plus eight and Americas are plus two. So that's going to be an interesting element to track is once those teams are matched up against each other, is the U.S. going to feel, are they going to roll four lines against Canada? I don't know. Maybe that's too getting into the nitty-gritty here. But I'm interested to see how those roll out together once everyone's playing. The top six of Team USA, they don't have a McDavid or a McKinnon, but their top line is Jack Hughes, Austin Matthews, and Matthew Cichuck. I mean, that's certainly how I would draw it up.

I don't know if they will do that. but with how poor Jack Hughes is at center, the fact you have Eichael, Larkin, Trocheck, Nelson, Miller, how do you not do that? Like Matthews and Cichuk aren't really known for transferring the puck up ice. That's Jack Hughes, bread of butter, elite, elite passer. How do you, you got to pair him with Matthews, and Cichick's also a great passer and grinder.

and that feels like the most perfect line at this tournament that I'll be genuinely mad if they don't do it. That feels like a superpowered version of what we've seen from the Leafs over the years when Matthews has been at his best, right, where you have Jack playing the, playing the Mitch Marner role, right? Even though he's a center, he's an actual center playing wing in this instance. And then you have Kachuk being, you know, whatever. Could Kachuk being Michael Buncing or Zach I'm in?

what I he's he's he's he's he's a little bit better I just you know what I can't even say that I can't even slag Zach Zach Hyman like that it's gonna be fun I'm sorry I hope that's what they do because that's a that's an interesting group and we should say these are line projections that we're using from Dom so maybe my whole spiel about the bottom six is completely like even more stupid than it already was because that's not going to be who lines up there I try I don't I don't know I'm like no this looks right I think we've got to do our best

The point is a good one, though, is that there's some projection going on there if you're assuming that those guys can bring high-end defensive value to the proceedings. Like, do we think that Dylan Larkin, if you throw him on a third line or a fourth line against that kind of competition can eat a little bit? Like, yeah, he seems like a psycho. We watch him playing all-star games. He seems like he's built for stuff like this, right? Yeah. But we don't know for certain because, you know, 82 game, NHL seasons. and all that stuff.

But he just seems like one of those guys where if you want to project and say that maybe there's some kind of defensive, you know, level or some kind of, you know, he can crank it to 11 and get it where it needs to be for international play like this. I think, I think it makes sense. But there is a level of projection going on for them for sure. I think a big point for Team USA because we did gas up Canada as the number one forward group. I mean, the U.S. has seven natural centers on this roster and they're going to have a lot of positional versatility. So what we're projecting now and what they might end up throwing out on game one versus a gold medal game, a final. We don't know how that looks yet. It could change because you could say, okay, Jack Hughes, you're the two C now instead of the number one left wing or J.T. Miller, you're not on the wing.

You're over here. Like they've got a lot to play with and that's and they don't have really any holes. I think, as Dom said, maybe not bringing Tage Thompson could hurt. But there's going to be a lot that Team USA can work with with this roster. Some guys we didn't mention Jack Eichel, Jake Gensel, obviously Kyle Connor is somebody who could scale a lineup. But if that's your third line left winger, you're probably doing okay. Let's go to the number three forward group, and that's Sweden. And then we can go to Finland at number four next and take a break here.

Sweden largely buoyed by some talent, like right in the top offensively, right? We're talking about Philip Borsberg, Elias Pedersen, William Neelander, Esper Brat. Those are kind of the big names on forward for the Swedish team. Yeah, and I think if you compare those, the big names of the three other teams, that is where Sweden lacks the most. even Finland has three superstars, and I'd probably take all three over any of these Swedish guys. And I think the decline of Mika Zabinajad is a big storyline for Sweden because he's supposed to be there, their top center. They took him before Pedersen, and he has just looked really unlike himself.

He looks like he's in rapid decline, and there's something happened there that he needs to figure out and maybe a line mate upgrade of yesterday we're at instead of Chris Kreider will do it I don't know but it's it does create a pretty sizable drop-off after that top four where the next group of guys are are great first-line talents it's just they would probably be bottom sixers on the year yes yeah um man you just look at I look at your depth chart here and just hammers home the decline of another Swedish center. Elias Lindholm or like the fourth best center on the on the Swedish team that you know like we keep saying doesn't doesn't have a great group of forwards. Yeah.

Plus two. I should note that some a lot of the ratings here are adjusted for time on ice. So Lindholm is getting probably 11, 12 minutes at this tournament. But at the same time, you compare him to Canada, U.S., where Sorrelli and Trocheque are double that, getting that same role. And so you're right about the decline of Linholm. I just want to point out that he is a little better than this,

just not in that fourth line role compare the other guys. We'll get to it, but I think the strength of Sweden's roster, which is what has them at number three overall and not four based on gassing up Finland's top forwards is the strength of their defense. But we'll get to that in segment too. Let's get to Finland's Forward Group quickly because Dom already did mention the four superstars. And I really like their center depth too. Like they're only third overall for centers because Canada and the U.S. are one and two. But we're looking at Alexander Barkov, Miko Rantonon, Sebastian Ahjo, and Rope Hints as like four.

legitimate superstars and Barcov, Aho and Hintz going one, two, three up the middle is great. Like that forward depth is only maybe hindered by the fact that Anton Liddell is, is our projection for the fourth line center. He's fine, but it's a drop off when we're talking about

Rope Hintz as a three C. So there's a reason to like... I'll say about Lindel. I say about he's been, he's been really good this year. So, right? Like he's still, he's still... He bailed them out when Barkha was hurt. So like, he's at least, you know, he's a step below those guys for sure, Haley. But I think that he's young, and there's some meat left on the bone, I think, with him. And he's maybe shown a little bit of a,

you know, he's pivoting, I think, here, but a bit so far this year. Yeah, that center depth is third, but it is closer to Canada and the U.S. than it is to Sweden. It's wild. Which I think they will really need to lean on, especially with some of the the winger depth that they have, which is not as great, unfortunately. I think there was a time where Finnan looked like an exciting power on the rise, but Capo Caco, Foui Arby is not even on this team, Clarkinemi, haven't developed as well as we expected them to, and that's a little disappointing for sure.

Kako is having a very strong season for the Rangers, amidst all the disaster otherwise. Right. But he's still not at the level you'd expect for a tournament like this where you're facing the best players in the world. And we should, Patrick Lina played his first game of the season after returning from injury. He scored in that debut game.

So maybe once we're in February, we'll see a bit of a different Patrick Lina playing for Finland. that's something to certainly keep an eye on with this team as well. Let's take a quick break. That was the forwards. Canada 1, USA 2, Sweden, 3, Finland 4. When we come back, we're going to dive into the blue lines. That's coming up next on the Effodicockey Show.

All right, we are back. It's time to get into the defense here in our positional rankings, looking into all three major positions, four teams for the four nations face off. We can just, there's no spoilers here. USA has the best defense in this tournament. We can start there before getting into number two. Maybe that is.

No spoilers there. Team USA is number one. Who's number two? We don't know yet. We know, but you guys don't know yet. Dom, what do you like about the U.S.

blue line that is led by Quinn Hughes, Charlie McAvoy, Jacob Slavin, Adam Fox, Brock Faber. I mean, you can just list the name and be like, yeah, that sounds sick. That sounds sick.

Noah Hanna, It's like, what do you like about this group that is led by? I don't know. Well, I like that, actually. Brock Faber is the worst player in the start, project the starting lineup. I think that's a decent start. Yeah. I think this is one of the things that really separates USA hockey right now is you have two absolute studs in Hughes and Fox.

They are top three defensemen in the world. And you can make a very reasonable debate. for Hughes being the best defenseman on the planet right now. Mm-hmm. And the other three guys are two-way studs, McAvoy, Slavin, Faber. You would feel very comfortable putting any of them on in the last minute of a hockey game.

And you would feel just as comfortable with Hughes or Fox. You have so many options here. The defensive ability of those five guys is, I think, really strong. and what will make USA very difficult to score against given their other major strength of this tournament. And that is not even mentioning Zach Werenski, who has been absolutely unreal.

I will mention Zach Werenczi. Go for it. He's been so good. We talked about Crider in the forward discussion, right? Like, to me, Werencki is kind of in that group. So, like, he's younger, sure. But he's gotten screwed over the last however many years because we haven't seen this kind of tournament.

And also, he's always been hurt. So what we have here is Zach Wrenski finally healthy for a protracted amount of time. And I'm knocking on every piece of wood that I see, you know, in this room because he's, you know, been bitten so, so heavily by injuries over the years. He's healthy. He's, like, playing as well as we've seen him.

And he has the opportunity to get it done in an international tournament. I think that's great. He's one of those guys that I felt. bad for a year ago where you're like, okay, has he aged, has he been passed up by enough people and struggled with injuries enough where like that part of his career is done? The time where he's one of the six best American defensemen or whatever, like, is it out the window? And it clearly isn't because he's been fantastic this year so far. And he's like, I think to me, the way he's played in what he could potentially add to this group is like, it's a variable compared to,

of three months ago or four months ago when we were doing these kind of projections. He's one of those guys that came out with his, you know, with his hair on fire this season and seemed like he, like he really played his way, not just onto the roster, but into a meaningful part of it. So I,

I'm psych to see where Werencki involved. It's eight goals and 26 points. Yep. Eight goals and 26 points in 24 games to start the season for Zach Wrenski. If anyone hasn't really been watching the blue jackets this season, and they're wondering like, Zach Wrenski, like,

should Noah Hannafin be in that starting slot. Did they leave somebody off the roster for him? I think there was some conversation about, at least on the Sportsnet show, like maybe John Carlson should have been here. But Zach Wrenski's having a great season. Definitely deserves one of those, quote, unquote, third pair D spots. Because, yeah, it's the complementary pieces of this blue line. Like, you've got two of the top three defenders in the world in your top four,

and then a bunch of guys who were really good, shut down, two-way, complementary pieces. You can mix and match this in a lot of fun ways. Like, do we see them, if USA's down a goal against Canada and a final, do you load up Quinn Hughes and Adam Fox in a top pair to try to get a goal at the end of the game? Like, that's really fun to look at this roster. And even Charlie McAvoy and Jacob Slavin would be a fun D pair.

There's a lot to like about the blue line for Team USA. Their left D is number one, right? D is number two. but the number two blue line in this tournament. It's not Canada. It's Sweden, actually. Victor Hedman, Rasmus Dahlene, Matias Ekholm, Gustav Forsling, Jonas Brodine, and Eric Carlson.

We've got Leo Carlson and Rasmus Anderson projected as the extra D here. Not Leo Carlson. Sorry, I was just reading the extras because they were right below the defense. Very sorry about that. No, that's my fault. I said that right away. And right away, I was like, wait a second. Leo Carlson. Rasmus Anderson is the projected extra defender here. But I think this blue line is their left D is number two in the world, largely because of Victor

Headman and Matthias at home. But Gustav Worsling has been the guy everyone's been talking about us, like this might be the best, most underappreciated defender in the world. Oh, and Rasmus Dahlene is there too. And Eric Carlson. I think Sean's a bit of an Eric Carlson hater on the pod, but. And if if Carlson's not up to snuff, you just put Rasmus Anderson there and you're probably fine. You're probably fine. I'm not a Carlson.

I play first Bell at All the Famer, all that stuff. He's, I don't, I don't know what he's going to look like. And I, that's going to be very interesting. What does Eric Carlson look like with a roster with it with a roster that Sweden's going to roll out? And what does he look like when he has to play again? the best of the best on a nine to nine out basis. I'm interested in that. Luckily,

they have Jonas Brodeen to help him out. Oh, yes. Yes, sure. That is what the best defensive partner he would ever have in his life. Yeah, it's like, stay over there. Stay over there. Like, let Eric Carlson, you know, go for his skates and whatever. Yeah, I'm interested to see it.

I think that's a fun variable. Like, we might see how much juice Carlson has, left. It might be a nice, a nice little look into that for sure. Should it be a surprised slash disappointment that Canada is number three behind Sweden in terms of the blue line? Maybe they have, they have such a massive head start with McCar that it is, it's the depth of Sweden that I think brings them to number two. And it's, it's very, very close. What is what do we got here? Like two goals separating them or something like that. So it's, it's closer to a tie,

but it's just the depth of Sweden that I think gives them the edge here. The one issue for sure, though, is the handedness where you've got five lefties and I don't know if you want Carlson and Anderson in the lineup at the same time, given how good the other five guys are

and how important Brodeen's skill set is in a shutdown capacity in a tournament like this where you're facing Canada, the U.S. The emergence, sorry, resurgence of Victor had him this year looking undeniably good at both ends of the ice. I think it's a big reason that Sweden comes in as a second best defense group here. He's been amazing this year. All right. So Canada is just, as Dom said, two goals behind Sweden was number two with a plus 52.

And Canada is number three with a plus 50. Obviously, you've got Kail McCar, Josh Morrissey, Devon Taves. We're obviously projecting Taves and McCar to stick together on a top pair. But I think Canada's blue line has maybe been one of the more controversial selections. Maybe that's a bit of where some of the big brain conversation comes in from Dom. Alex Petterangelo, Travis Sandheim, Shea Theodore, and then Colton Perrako, Dom is projecting to be the seventh defender. Dom, where do you think Canada left some value on the board here?

Is the blue line the disappointing part for Canada's roster for you? Yeah, I really do think so. I am a devout Eben Bouchard. I don't even know how to put it. No, you're an accolite. You're part of the church of Evan Bouchard. I love that man. and I understand what

Evan Bouchard. The man you are, says, says Domestician. I get it. The man you can be. His reputation as someone who made his own big-brained mistakes on the ice without the puck is not incorrect. He, I think a year, a year and a half ago, was the kind of guy that would scare.

the bejesus out of you, if you had him a term like this. He was a frightening player. But I think that is genuinely changed. And I think anyone who watched him in the playoffs last year, he was a completely different player than the guy he was a year ago, where he still made some mistakes, but they were so few and far between and so minuscule compared to the just sheer value he added to the orders with the puck.

And he is an absolute stud. We had him as a top 10 defenseman in the league going into the year. He's not been as good offensive this year, but he's been the best we've seen him defensively. He had a really rough game against Toronto, and that obviously gets a lot of eyeballs. But aside from that, he's been really good. And I think not bringing him is playing it way too safe. And then you see who they brought instead, and you're like, you're playing it even safer than you've ever played it before. where I like Travis Sandheim.

I don't like him more than Bouchard. I think it's the safe way to put in. Poreko. You don't like anybody more than Bouchard. He's your best friend. And then Bouchard is Dons' best friend. That's fairly correct. I don't see the need to have Sanheim and Poreko here.

I'm not sure why they didn't bring McKenzie Wigger, who is a safe and dependable player. And I don't know, after McCar, like as good as Morrissey's been, like you don't have that studded defenseman, I think, in terms of bringing this dynamic offense out, especially with how much firepower the forward group has. I think you want to match that, match that and bring that out. And Bouchard does that. He helps McDavid reach these heights. Like it's a two-way street.

And obviously, McDavid is like 80% of it because he's McDavid. But Bouchard adds a lot. And I think people would be surprised how well Bouchard plays. place without McDavid and without dryside on the ice, even defensively. Like, he's been extremely good and for some reason just can't shake this reputation that he is just a complete liability defensively. And I mean, you look at Petra Angel last two years, no one's talking about him being a liability defensively when he's been getting

caved in and scored on regularly for Vegas. I think if we're looking at the fact that we were like gassing up Zach Wrenski and Brock Faber as a quote unquote third pair for Team USA. I think the big thing is more in comparison is then following that up with Canada with Travis Sandheim and Shea Theodore. I think it's just we're in the business of comparing these rosters. It's a ranking. And like that just it's not, there's a drop there for me when we're talking about Wrenski

and Faber to Sanheim Theodore slash Pereco, whoever ends up on that combo for Canada. And I look at what Canada did with the defense too, the same way I look at what the same way I look at what the U.S. did with their forwards. Like if you're going to have the extra, why not make it Tage Thompson? Edge your bets. Have like the high ceiling, like the high ceiling, you know, maybe low floor player that can replace somebody at the top of the lineup aptly if something bad happens, right? And I look at what Canada did defensively in the same kind of vein, where it's like if you're going to bring an extra, you're like fine. Bouchard, Weger, like, don't like, maybe you don't, those guys aren't in your night one

projected starting lineup. But if Kail McCar gets hurt, who on earth would you want to take over that spot more than Evan Bouchard, right? Like, like have that, have that bet hedge baked in the original roster projections. So I kind of look at those, at the U.S. forwards and the, in the Canadian defense. is kind of, you know, two sides of the same coin. They, they talked about having McCar taking over the top power play and not having a spot for Bouchard there.

And that's completely fine, understandable. He's not just a power play guy. Like, he's really good at five on five. He is part of what makes the Oilers such a strong possession team. And the conversation you have about hedging your bets with someone elite, I look at who's on the management team and I of this person, but I think about his division with Toronto when he traded for Nick Felino instead of Taylor Hall.

And instead of hedging your bets and getting more offense, you went with the fit or whatever. What happens to the playoffs when your stars gets hurt and you can't score anymore? So it's just playing it way too safe when there was room for Bouchard here. I just wonder. To add to the Bouchard fan club here,

I saw this stat from somebody with Oilers Nation who posted this. If the issue with Bouchard is that he's not defensive enough for what Canada wants at the bottom of its decor. He has been on the ice for fewer five-on-five goals against per 60 in the past two seasons. with and without Metteas Eccl, on the ice, then Devon Taves, Colton Pereco,

Travis Sandheim, and Alex Petrangelo. So if we're going to make the case that Bouchard is just a power play specialist who plays with David, like that's fine because guess what? Connor McDavid's on Team Canada and they could play together and cook on the power play.

But also he's not this, you know, pylon defensive liability either. He had a couple moments. People who made this roster. He had a couple moments in November. remember very obvious, very public moments where like whether it was an issue of effort, whatever it was, he had some, some optics on some of the ways he was playing, where he got, he got rightfully burned for it. And I wonder if, I wonder if that came back and bit him,

honestly. Like, these are, these are the margins that we're talking about whenever you're like, are you going, are you staying? This is the stuff that execs look at. This is stuff that team builders look at. Who knows, man? Maybe they're looking at. at Evan Bouchard coasting on a, you know, going, trying to back check on a, on a, on a, on a, on a breakaway, like, like, like, like, like you did a couple times in November and say like, all right, you know what, never mind. I, I, it wouldn't surprise me.

His game against Toronto was legitimately his worst game of the season and I might have had the most eyeballs on him, which is. Yeah. Unfortunately timing, but. How many eyeballs were on him during a Stanley Cup. I agree. Final run where he. Yeah.

He was amazing. Yeah. If they score one more goal in game seven. against Florida or whatever. He's a lock. Yeah. Yeah, that guy didn't just go away because he had a bad game against Toronto. Was your dog like screaming in the background? Ruby

wants everyone to know that she's upset about Evan Bouchard as well. Yes, Amanda just went to take the dogs for a walk and he was excited that someone was paying attention to her right now. I thought she was just screaming about Evan Bouchard. He's trained Ruby to react.

Whenever Evan Bouchard's name is said enough times, in five minutes, Ruby starts to scream. Her saying, okay, we got to move on to the Finland blue line. It's Miro Hayskinen. And friends. It's Miro Hayskinin. I'm sorry, that's mean, but their D is plus 16.

And Miro Heskin is plus 18. Yeah, it's a significant drop off from every other blue line. And it's going to be a problem for Finland. Congrats. Congrats to Holy Matta, though. he gets he he gets to get involved nico micola acilindel ristolining like this is i like asel andel sure i i don't know if i don't know if i don't know if i would i don't know if i would want him starting for my national team but sure canada would yeah canada would trade who would

canada trade for asylindel that's the question josh morsey get out of here No, come on down. Let's not be crazy. How bad has Henry Yoki Haru been this year that Finland has said, we're going to take the guy that I'm not sure has a functioning body at the moment. Yeah. There are some guys in the mix just generally with Finland. I'm not going to name any names, but I was like, Joe, you are Mia?

Is he in the NHL this year? And the answer is yes. And also he is on team Finland in the four nation. frenzy as I keep calling it. The one good thing we can say about Finland and their defense is that they are defensively strong and they will make things difficult and be a good barrier in front of some very strong goaltending. So they have that going for them.

It's just after Heiskenen, there's no one really facilitating offense from the back end. And I think that'll be a big issue. Yeah. Okay. let's take a break just to recap the ranking for the blue lines it's team USA number one Sweden number two Canada three and Finland way back in four we've got one more position to break down it's the goaltenders that's coming up next on the athletic hockey show all right it's the final segment of the show it's time to talk about the goalies

team USA ahead of the pack this is a bit of an under discussed topic I would say is the state of goaltending in international hockey, wouldn't you? Certainly not in Canada. I think that there have been stories and hits on various hockey-related TV shows in this country for months now about what happened to the Canadian goaltending golden era. And yeah, Canada's not number one in the goalie position. You'll be shocked to know. It's Team USA, and it's led by Connor Hellebuck, the projected number one goalie.

He's plus 18. And then they have Jake Ottinger and Jeremy Swayman. I think we're projecting Swayman to be the number three heading into the tournament because he's not playing. Great. But don't make me... No, he's not. Don't make me say anything bad about Jeremy Swayman on this podcast. I'm not contractually allowed to do so.

We love Swaving around here. What do we think? Sean, you're the American. Are you pleased with Connor Hellebuck as your number one goalie? I am, but there's always an asterisk when you talk about Hella Buck to some extent because for as great as he is,

I'm serious. Jesus Christ. We're talking about this big game ability. How many playoff series has he won in the last five years? How good was he against Colorado? He wasn't. The answer, bad, not good. So I don't mind having the Jake Ottinger Jeremy Swamon insurance plan behind him if Hellebuck, you know, rolls up and decides to, you know, have another 850 game.

You couldn't even say one good thing about Connor Hullabuck. I love Connor Hullabuck. I think he's, he's, I should have led with that. The fact that this guy does what he does regular season after regular season on that team starting to 60 games or what that's like, that's a feat. And it's not his fault that it seems like by the time the playoffs roll around, he's a little bit gassed. Sure, but going into four-nation space off, 30 games into the season or whatever, is different than playing 60 and then falling apart. I honestly hadn't thought about that. We're not on start number 68 in April or whatever at this point. So he'll be in mid-season form engrave the trophy already.

never mind i stand corrected if you were to rank all the goalies at this tournament hell buck won and then swayman on your are in the top floor is that fair to say yeah and then i think you throw u.c sorrows somewhere in that mix right and then

kevin lankin let's know okay maybe not I think we get out of the top five before we talk about Canada starter. I think it's fair to say that. Yeah, probably. It's just the embarrassment of riches. I think it's very fair to say that. And I actually, maybe I'm just a Canadian girl.

Maybe I'm just a little girl in Canada. But I'm actually kind of excited to see what Jordan Bittington does in front of. behind Caves, McCar, Morrissey, Petrangelo, like, and Cheodore. That's a great point. I definitely am psych to see. Jordan Bennington got, like, one of the big conversations in award time last year was like, why the hell is Binnington not a finalist for the Vesnet? Like, he has been a legitimately good starting goalie in the NHL.

I think it's easy to dunk on the blues and Bittington. And like maybe I'm doing that in a way by saying I'm excited to see what he looks like behind a better blue line. But I am. I don't think Jordan Bennington's going to. The great argument with Bennington's last year was, wow, look what he's doing in front of this horrible blue line. Now let's take a look at Canada's blue line. Who's in there? Yeah, who else could they throw on there?

Nick Leonard's American, isn't he? They went there. What's like the big issue for the blues. To me, the crazy thing about Bennington is not that he's on the team because he's, you know, whatever. He was great last year. Yeah, he was really good last year. The fact that he's like the slam dunk number, to me, I'm like, I'm starting Jordan Bennington out of that group of goaltenders, 10 times out of 10. And the fact that that's the case, that it doesn't even seem like there's any particularly great option behind him is his damning an indictment of the Canadian goaltending situation as I can imagine.

imagine. It's not just that Binnington's at the top. It's that there's no, it's, it's like not really even a coin flip. And I think that's, I think that's crazy. And like I said, I'm not, I'm not complaining about it. I'm psyched to see how this works out. Every year with goaltending, there's like five to seven slam dunk guys and then a whole mess of dudes that are like interchangeable and feel like whatever. Yeah. And Canada just doesn't have one of those slam dunk guys. guys anymore. No. And I think Benating is at the top of Canada's pack of those interchangeable guys, but Hill and Montaubal are are in there. I guess they have had good seasons. Hill looked amazing against the Oilers the other night and it's fine. Yeah. But at a tournament like

this fine feels terrible. Yeah. I... my dad's big thing on the Canadian gold tending is like they should just bring Flurry. Like give him a farewell to her like we're screwed anyways. I've heard worse ideas. I've heard worse ideas. He was like, why are they bringing Montembo? Just bring Mark Andre Fleury. I was like, well, part of the logic is that like, hey, they might need Montsenbo for future.

Yeah. And that's crazy. Yeah. Like I'm sorry. That's, that's crazy that you're thinking ahead, the Olympics or whatever. and you're like, yeah, we should probably bring Montembo as the three because we might need them down the line. That's true. That's the crazy part is that that's like a decent bit of logic.

But the fact that they have to resort to that is what's, that's just wild. It's wild. These are the three best Canadian goaltenders. That's hard to believe. Canada's entire next decade relies on Devin Levi being really good. He's our only hope at this point. Yeah. So we didn't do the ranking, by the way. Team USA is number one, as we said, Sweden number two, Finland number three, and surprise, Canada is number four. And I think that's where

the Canadian goalie panic comes from is it's not just that the U.S. has passed Canada in terms of goaltending. It's that Canada is in this tournament the fourth best when it comes to goaltending. And it could be even worse if we open it up and allow other nations, i.e. at the Olympics. So that's where the Canada goalie panic comes from. And that could be, and that's what makes I think if we add together the, to

kind of round out the discussion, because we did talk about how Sweden has Jacob Markstrom, that gets them the number two goalie spot. Finland, yeah, and Finland, you have UC Soros who might be one of the top, what, two, three goalies

in this tournament alone. So Finland gets number three there. in Canada number four. And I think what makes Team USA the team to beat after all the talk about how Canada has all this firepower and at the forwards as a whole and when you add in guys like Kail McCar, it's that the blue line after Kale is just fine. And the goaltending is the worst of the tournament. And Team USA has like doesn't have any of those holes that Canada does. And that's where we end up with this. Yeah, Team USA is the team to beat. I don't think anyone, would be surprised if a team led by Connor McDavid and Kail McCar, Nathan McKinnon,

wins a tournament. But, and that's where the Canada bias comes in. They're just the little guys. Just whittled team Canada. Nobody is saying that. They haven't had vulnerability. Many,

many, I just made this, like, I was trying to make an insightful point about the fact that Team USA doesn't have any of the holes that Canada does. I'm not being a poopy baby about Canada. I am saying that Team USA is the best roster. Very important thing. If you add up the forwards and defense for Canon U.S., they are equal teams, according to my stupid model anyways.

And the entire difference is a net. So when the Canadian media rags on for seven years about goaltending, they have a point. It is the difference in this tournament because Helibuck is the best going in the world right now, when Jordan Bennington is probably the eighth goal, best goal at this tournament. And that's a huge issue when there's only four teams at this tournament. It's just four games. Like, whatever.

We're all, like, this is, that's the, that's the crazy part of all this, is that it's such a short tournament, and it's such a small sample size that, like, up, like, this is fun. To, like, like, building out rosters and analyzing stuff, that's fun. But the dirty secret is, like,

a couple of times off of you. A couple bounces here or there. like Canada's goalie situation could look a lot better by the end of February. It's wild. I'm the only one on this podcast who said they're excited to see Jordan Finnicton. Nope. Will I end up sounding like an idiot? I did.

Maybe. I think you can extend the radius outside of this podcast and still be the only one saying that. This is incoming, this is incoming whatever, 64 saves and 66 shots. in the final two games of the tournament for Jordan Bennington. That's all you guaranteed. We can clip this and we'll revisit in February. Either good or only if I'm right, though. If I'm wrong, delete the tape.

It's a situational. Yeah. Jeff lost the footage. To add to Sean's point about it being four games and us panicking about Canada, like the game probability is 55% U.S. They have slightly weighted coin flip odds. This is still going to be a very close game.

And hopefully it'll be a fun game to watch. I am excited. Sean's almost there. We'll see how it goes. I'm there. I think the last few days have put me there. Wait, is it just a round robin and then a championship? That's correct.

That's the entire tournament. Huh. Realizing how little I know about the Four Nations face off. Four Nation frenzy. That's not what it's called. It should have been called that. In my heart, that's what it's called. Yeah. Sean went from being like, no one cares about this tournament to yelling for an hour about how everyone's disrespecting Team USA. Spend a couple days watching Canadian sports networks when you're not used to it.

It'll change your mind real fast. That's all I'll say. I think Dom and I are the Canadians and we don't even watch. You're used to it. I just don't watch. I'm joking. I just don't watch. I just don't watch. Don't watch. That sounds so bad. I don't watch hockey actually. Jeff is calling me out in the chat here,

saying he thought it was called the BS made up tournament cash grab, which is true. Did I say that? I did say that. But I reserved the right to change my mind. Yeah. And what's happened over the last couple weeks is, I'm all in, baby, let's go.

I'm blocking time off for the middle of February or whenever this is taking place. I have one parting thought, and I forgot to bring this stuff. up because we were yelling about Tage Thompson and Evan Bouchard. Why isn't Dylan Strom on Team Canada? He's not that good. He's the fourth highest scoring Canadian in the NHL this year. Congratulations, Dylan Strom and the Washington Capitals.

He would need probably, I don't know, three more years to undo the damage that was done at the start of his career. His prize. I thought you'd be on my side because you're the big Caps fan of this podcast. I love, they're a blast. I love watching them. He's been, and he's been great. But who does he bump? Like, this is, this is crazy.

I think it's a credit to Canadian deciders of this roster that they were not fooled by Strome's 19% on ice shooting percentage and said, let's take some great grinding forwards and establish a new Canadian identity. Can he bring Alexi Proto's to these games? That's the question. I don't know. I'm just interested if they considered him because it seemed like everyone was slotting in Tom Wilson and their projected rosters. And like, I get it. I'm, I'm half joking when I bring up the Dylan Strome of it all. But it is funny that it's like nobody spoke about.

Never mind. It was like he's got 34 points already this season. And everyone's just like, ah, that got all that early career, whatever Blackhawks stink on them and other other stuff. It's going to take them years to play that off. If he scores 90 points this year and keeps it up, I think he'll be on the radar for the Olympics. I think that's probably fair. I think that's probably fair to say. I agree with you there.

But he's just not there yet. And I think there's a bit of luck involves, maybe not luck. A little hot streak, good fortune, whatever. He's playing well. But there are a lot of pucks going in that can't be safely expected to go in in a tournament like this given how they're going in. Yeah. That's such a diplomatic way of you saying he's lucky. My God, you're the best, you're the best to do it. Look at this. Yeah. Well, I think as we look ahead to the Olympics, too, this tournament is almost going to either confirm that the decision makers didn't big brain stuff, right? Like, they're going to either figure out, hey, Colton Pareko and Travis Sandheim were actually geniuses for that. Or they're going to learn, hey, maybe that wasn't the right choice and we should bring Evan Bouchard to the Olympics. Like this tournament is going to. help make Olympic decisions a little bit easier, I think, to have more touch points in a meaningful best on best way. And a whole nation's going to love Seth Jarvis.

I think he's the one guy when I think of, again, like my dad, who's just, you know, the Leafs fan who sits in his ottoman and watches the Leafs every game. I think Seth Jarvis is going to be the guy or my dad's like, who is that? I love this guy. Your dad's a Leafs fan and doesn't know the Seth Jarvis lore? No, he doesn't, my dad wouldn't even. Even if you said the word of lore, he'd be like, what are you talking about? But my dad loved the Patrick Marlowe trade. Like, that's what you don't understand. Oh, man.

Whenever, whenever Seth Jarvis is scoring goals and being a menace in the first in the first U.S. round robin game, you can bring that up. You can say that guy is not in the least because of the Patrick Marlowe trade. We'll see how that goes. And he'll probably be like, eh. I did love that trade, though. Anyways, thanks everyone for listening to this episode of The Athletic Coffee Show. This has been our Four Nations face-off deep dive.

The next show is the Prospect Series, Max Boltman, Corey Prom and Scott Wheeler, Chris Peters. That's coming up on Friday on The Athletic Hockey Show. Sean and I will be back next Thursday. Don will be back in three weeks, let's say. Nice. Sure. Thanks, everyone.