The Hockey PDOcast - Four Nations Roster Breakdown, Part 1

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by John Matisz and Sean Shapiro to break down the rosters for the Four Nations tournament. In Part 1, they cover the selections for Team USA and Team Sweden. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Demetra Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy John Mattis. John, what's going on, man? Not a whole lot, Dimitri. Thanks for having me on. Also joining us is my other good pal, Sean Shapiro.

We're dusting off the three-man tripod that we do for special occasions. We've done it for the trade deadline. We did it for free agency. and now most recently we're going to do it for the four nations roster announcements Sean what's going on in is this so this is now we've done this three times this means it's actually it's something right like typically when when you when you go and launch an outlet or whatever whatever you do right like it's the you're like oh yeah we're going to do this and then someone does it once or twice and then six months later there's a blog post about how we thought about it but it didn't work like

so we've reached we've reached the third rent edition of this so I think that means we've officially made it in the world right Yeah, we've been syndicated. This is an official product now. We're still working on the branding. We don't have any sponsors here. But it's okay because all the matters is the three of us are together. We're going to have a great time. The listeners are certainly going to enjoy it as well. We've got two hours here as well. I should note that usually the PDA cast is, of course, a 50 minute show. We're blowing it out. We're doing a two hour special. And we're going to go sort of, we're going to break down everything that happened in terms of the selections, sort of the process, the logic behind each to for the four teams set the stage for the tournament. I know it's still a couple months away, although with the holidays here around the corner, it's all going to fly right by, and it's going to be mid-February before you know it.

So I think people are finally starting to get excited about it now that we know all the rosters for the four teams. What are your guys' excitement levels for it? Does it still seem like it's a bit of a distant dream and you're going to wait until, like, end of January, early February, to start getting into it, or do you feel like now that we know the rosters, it feels like it's finally here?

I think just professionally, I mean, I've been pretty dialed into roster projections and whatnot. We love to do that in the content game. But actually getting the rosters is nice because now there's some reality to it. There's some stickiness to it. And I love the idea of the tournament. I'm glad it's happening. I wish it was a bit longer. Like it's going to be pretty quick here.

It's whatever, a week, 10 days long. I think there's only seven total game. So it's not like it's going to be this drawn out slug fest of a, tournament. So that would be the only drawback. But I mean, if you're going to have a drawback, that's not a bad one. We're having this thing. All four teams can ice a pretty good squad.

And the players are fired up. Like, this has been a really long time coming. It has. It's been so long since we had the best on best. Obviously, Sochi 2014, we had the World Cup of hockey in 2016, which captivated the entire hockey audience and it was a great spectacle. and event. It's crazy to think that it's been over eight years now since we got anything resembling this, right? Just thinking about a guy like Macklin-Selabrini, he's going to be young

for any sort of point in time, but he was 10 years old the last time we had something like this. So it's pretty remarkable to think how much times passed, how much the game, the players involved have all changed. And so just seeing some of these guys, especially interact, right? We haven't really gotten to see McDavid play with Crosby, for example, and all this stuff. So it's kind of, from a fantasy perspective, sort of, I think it's going to check a lot of boxes for a lot of people, regardless of your rooting interests. Yeah, I was on the Sweden media availability yesterday, the Zoom there, and it was Jacob Markstrom was on there. He played for, he was Lundquist's backup at the World Cup of hockey eight years ago. And I thought he had a pretty good perspective on it, how it's been like his entire life is completely, like, between the two best on best tournaments.

I think he had one world's appearance at some point in that eight years span. but how much his life is different. You think about, and I remember I just go back and look at that roster where the last time we had this, it was Penrick Lundquist and goal, and we had, we had all, it's a completely kind of connection point to we've lost an entire era of international hockey that we finally get the first taste of it. So, like, I agree with John where if there's a downside or a bummer or whatever, it's the fact that we only get, we only get seven total games of this. You only get three games of each team. but I think to me the bigger thing is what it represents right now is, hey, we get to see some of this and what it also represents with the whole bigger thing

that we all look forward to with the Olympics in 2026 too. So the only downside is I'd like to see more now, but I'm willing to take this taste of it right now for what it means of them long term here. John, what do you think about the sort of context as we get into the selection process and how these teams were put together, obviously for all of them. there were at least a certain number of locks. And I was like, all right, these guys are obviously going to be in it for a bunch of the teams, especially the two North American ones.

There's been a lot of debate about some of the guys on the fringes and who made it first, who didn't. And we're going to get into all that here today. But just in terms of the context of A, this tournament serving as a bit of a sort of, I don't know, laying the groundwork, I guess, for the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, right? And sort of either vetting players to, like, get them in here and prepare them for, that or sort of looking ahead as opposed to just purely viewing this as one sort of isolated event that we have to win and this is all that matters. I think some of these countries are certainly

viewing that in the grand scheme of things. And then also you mentioned how finite the tournament is in terms of the number of games that are going to be playing and being jammed into this two-week stretch. There's going to be so little time for acclamation or adjustment, I guess, for these guys. And so the players who are either going to fill certain roles or what they're going to be asked to do on this team, which is going to be obviously a big departure from what they do for their regular NHL clubs where they play bigger roles. I wonder how much of the process involved as well, that sort of logic of like, we're going to have so little time to adjust here. So we need to make sure that we actually put together a team that makes sense is going to be able to play together and

kind of land on its feet and hit the ground running right away, as opposed to taking three or four games to sort of get settled and have everyone's role sorted out because by then the tournament's going to be over. Yeah, I mean, I would think based on some of the selections and just the way that hockey coaches think and the way that hockey managers think, there was a chemistry component to all this. You know, I think Brandon Hagel deserved to be on Canada, but does it help that Cooper knows him well? He can maybe play with point. He can maybe play with Sorrelli. And the same applies to Sorrelli and his Canada seat for Canada. Again, they should have made it regardless, but that certainly helped. So I think we'll see stuff like that.

We'll see probably an all Nova Scotia line on Canada where we just don't have the time to have this chemistry experiment with linemates. So, hey, there's three guys that play together in the summer. They know each other very well. Boom, that's a line out of the gate. I think we'll see a lot of that. And it's kind of weird. Like, I think there's some auditioning going on for 2026, the Olympics.

But at the same time, I don't see any picks, at least with Canada and the U.S. where you go, this is purely a tryout. Like if, say, Wyatt Johnston had made Canada, you go, okay, you know, coming into the season, he was on a good trajectory, not the, not the sharpest first quarter, probably doesn't deserve to make it. So if he made it, you go, oh, they're clearly trying to sort of weave him into the Olympic roster. I don't see too many of those across the board here, but there's certainly a connection.

I mean, if Seth Jarvis pops off, hey, guess what? He's a lock to make the Olympic team, right? So it's interesting in that aspect where you've got two back-to-back events after a huge gap of no events. So that's going to play a role. I mean, there's absolutely no denying that if a player stands out in this tournament, even if he's struggling to start next year, he'll be on the radar, if not on the team already. I think there's going to be a certain value in terms of familiarity as well, not only within the players, but obviously the decision makers and sort of some of the choices they made,

especially if it was a bit of a coin flip. Sean, I'm curious about your take on this. I think John mentioned earlier sort of the prestige of this tournament, right, where like it's an honor not only to represent your country, but also be selected as one of the top 23 players in the mix. And so there's certain players that we're going to get through today that I'm sure felt at the start of the season that they were going to make it, maybe even up until Monday night where like I think I my body of work, my resume,

even my play this season warrants a selection that didn't wind up making it. I'm curious to see sort of what the fallout or response of that is in terms of whether we see some kind of revenge tours in terms of players stepping their game up even more, not that guys at this level necessarily need added motivation because the regular season is still so competitive and you have to bring it every single night. but just in terms of proving the decision makers wrong and that they made a mistake, that they should have been there and potentially even opening the door for being one of the next guys called up because I'm sure between now and February 12th or one of this tournament starts,

we're going to have at least a couple players that have been selected, either get banged up or hurt or not be able to make it, and that's going to open the door for them to be the next guy who gets the call. What do you think from like a player perspective in terms of the guys who missed out on this, how they're treating it and sort of what actual impact that has and how much which they really care about it. I think there's two elements to it. And I was,

I just actually just wrote something with our pal Bob Stern, Dimitri, about Jason Robertson's season and what he's doing right now. I think there's, there's some players who, I don't know about revenge tour, but there might be a bit of an eye opener. And like Robert and I just, Robertson's fresh on mine because Bob and I wrote about this morning.

If I had told you three months ago that Jason Robertson wasn't going to be on this team, Jason Robertson's been on every single projected roster for Team USA since we started. since this whole thing has become a reality. And so I think for some players, this might be a little bit of that eye-opener, that thing, and how, I don't know how much it sparks a revenge tour because it's hard to,

it's hard to pick. I mean, I guess, like, I guess with Robertson, next time they play the Minnesota Wild, I guess, or next time Buffalo plays the Minnesota Wild. Like, I think that's the, I think Bill Garron didn't do the Wild any favors with some of his selections.

But as far as, like, players go, maybe there's a little bit of an eye opener or something like that. The other thing that was like just kind of interesting to me and you go through it, right? There's it's, it's, they really looked at team success a lot in this. Like these are individual picks, but like I saw something like Montaibu from Montreal, and he's the only one that I feel like is, hey, this is a tryout for Canada in Olympics because that's what you do with the third string goalie if you were truly taking top three goalies. maybe you actually consider a Cam Talbot with how he's playing or something like that.

But I think Montaubu is the only player from Canada on a team under 500. I think I saw the stat on that. So they only like team success definitely came into play. And it's not one player, but I think the biggest snub team and the biggest easiest coaching tool that was given was the Washington Capals had zero guys taken. Spencer can. So Carberry can, yep, Carberry can now go and use that as a team-wide message, right?

You know what? Where the team nobody wanted. They did best on best hockey and none of you got taken. F them. We can do it. I think that's the, I don't know how much it's going to be used. I don't know what it will have. I mean, Washington's already much higher in the standings than I would have expected.

But to me, that's one of those, like, from a league standing team perspective place where teams and players rally together about it. Because I think, like, Robertson, right? Robertson getting snubbed and not making teams. you say well the stars are already a good team they've already had guys who made the team like i think those full team building blocks like washington will have are going to be something that's going to be used as a rallying cry for the rest of the season like i'm sure they all and obviously the washington factor is some of their best players happen to be russian so that yes comes into

play as well but yes well i was going to say i don't think spencer carberry is short on motivation and tactics and tools right now based on the way they've been playing the season and the job he's done i think that's also a feature not a bug for them right it's like they're getting so many contributions. I certainly would have just based on play this season,

had Logan Thompson on this roster. You look at his numbers and they're the best out of any Canadian goalie this year. I understand why he wasn't on it. Whether it's Dylan Strom,

Connor McMichael, John Carlson, there's certainly contributors that I think made a very strong case for it, but I think from the Caps perspective, they're probably just fine,

um, continuing along with their season the way it's been going so far. Do you guys want to get into the teams now? I feel like we did enough of, enough of a sort of overview. and kind of general tactics thing. And let's start with Team USA and we'll go forward by,

or sort of forwards defense goalies, and we'll kind of go by position group accordingly. For the forward group for Team USA, I'm not going to list everyone involved. I will say my first sort of takeaway in seeing this group of 13-4s they selected is, I believe there's only two right shots amongst the 13, their Jack Eichl and Vincent Trocheck.

I'm not sure how much that matters, because skill will find a way to overcome whatever limitations that provides, right? A lot of these guys are really good versus how players. And so they'll find a way to mold their game around that and make it work. I guess from a power play perspective, since teams really do like to have the two one-time shot options on either flank, that's a bit limiting because you only have Jack Eichael essentially there to stand at the left flank if you want to have a shot there for the one-time option.

But otherwise, I thought that was a bit notable because certainly when you look at the defense group for Team Canada, for example, and we'll get to that later, they clearly put a lot of stock into making sure they had a nice balance sort of left shot versus right shot combination of players. And for Team USA, it seems like they essentially almost entirely just took left shot forwards. Well, and that leads us to the biggest snub now, Tage Thompson. In my opinion, the biggest snub out of Wednesday's announcement.

One, you make a good point, Dimitri, in terms of him being a right shot, and being a power play option. So he makes sense even in that narrow view. But also he leads the nation and goals per game, has a track record of scoring, you know, to Sean's point earlier, plays on a poor team. So I don't know if that paints him in the wrong brush

as far as, oh, this isn't a big time player. But I think that's not the way to look at Tage Thompson. I mean, he's a big time player in a lot of ways as far as if you track the Sabres, he's the one guy that if they're down for nothing, he scores the next two goals. Or, you know, that tying goal or the winning goal. Like, he's a force of nature out there and very much a unicorn in terms of being the 6 foot 6, 6, 6, 7 guy who can just wire the puck, who's extremely skilled,

who's actually pretty good defensively. Like, he's certainly not a liability. And you can put him on the center or the wing. Obviously, we've seen him have more success at center in the NHL. but there's a fair amount of versatility there, even though he is labeled as a sniper. So I thought that was, I don't know, questionable. I, you know, like if you want the versatility of Nelson on there,

you know, if we're going to kind of think of this as, okay, if you're going to throw Tage out there as a snub, who are you taking out? If you want Nelson's versatility, which is what Bill Guerrins said, as far as justifying that pick, well, I think that you can take Kreider off the team and add Tage Thompson as far as having that big body presence, goal score, and again, you get that right shot versus the left shot on the power play. And yeah, it's a little bizarre, but Thompson jumps off the page in terms of snubs with me where he might be the only one out of the four teams where I go, the GM is going to regret this.

I think that if you look through all the four teams, there's many ways to sort of reason all the decisions and talk your way into this player over that player and you go okay like they had a lot of options whatever i think tage is the one guy where you go i can't believe they left them off well especially since other than being banged up i'll let you jump in here in a second shot but just on the on the on the page point not only is a right shot and has the 13 goals and 20 games 12 with them at 5-1-5 especially but other than missing a little stretch of time with that injury recently it feels like he's also really rounder back into the form of the healthy dynamic shooter and score that he was two years ago as well, right?

I'd include him. I think Cole Calfield as well as a right shot who has 16 goals in 25 games, obviously a different player in terms of dimensions and size, but similarly a goal scoring threat with that handedness. Brock Bessor is a right shot as well, although his is more of a rister than necessarily standing for the one-time option. And then Clayton Keller as well, who has 22 points in 25 games. Now he didn't score a goal in all of November until literally the last game

impossible. And so he's kind of, his stock is certainly dropped from that perspective to where it was, maybe at the start of the year. But it feels like those guys are the most obvious ones. And then Jason Robertson, I do want to talk to you specifically, Sean, about Robertson a little bit more. But I'll let you jump in here with what you were going to say before I so rudely kind of off. I mean, there's two points to me. I wonder if this was a longer tournament if Tage Thompson's on the team. Because I think part of it, the selections are with the short tournament. I think there was a bit of an emphasis on we need guys who can play these roles not guys who can grow into these roles right it's got to be played these roles right now where it's like

benson trochec not not saying he shouldn't be on the team or anything but vincent trochak is going to be willing to step into a role right away that USA is like oh we know he can play that role it's not the olympic it was going to be a little bit longer maybe with the olympics you give guys a little bit more of a time. Oh, maybe this guy can grow into that role. I think part of it comes into that where maybe USA, the other one that I can't help but just be a conspiracy theorist about is if Bill Guerin is not the GM of the Minnesota Wild, is Matt Boldy on this team? And I'm not saying Matt Boldie shouldn't be in the conversation, but just if the GM of Team UFSA is not the GM of an NHL team, is he picking Matt Boldy? I think he does. I think Boldie's been an incredible

this year. I think he's been good. I just can't help. I'm the conspiracy theory. I cannot help, but look at it that way. Sean, I can't believe you already went there because in my notes here, I'm looking at him right now. I literally have a point that says, I cannot believe the Mark Lazarus yesterday tweeted

this exact thing you just said, where he essentially questioned and then wound up deleting it because people came after him. And I think correctly so, because I just think that's a bad take. And I get that there's a lot of... It could be a bad take. There's a lot of players. involved here. This guy's got 11 goals, 13 assists in 26 games

or 25 games. His 5-on-5 metrics are off the charts. I did a big deep dive on him earlier this season and in it I essentially noted that he's the perfect player for this type of tournament because he's such a connector in terms of his like wall play and stuff and in fact I think he has one

of the more unique kill skits of any of the guys on this team. So I actually think if I was controversial picks, he wouldn't even be in my top four or five of the four ways that we've listed here. And that's fair. And that's fine.

I'm allowed to be the conspiracy theorist on this. I'm allowed to look at this and wonder, because like, if somehow the Buffalo Sabres had hit any type of success at all in the past six to 12 years and their GM was somehow on the staff, I'm pretty sure Tage Thompson would be on this team. And unlike, as Laz, I love you, buddy. I doubt you're listening to this.

But I am not going to tell Dimitri to go to delete that takes. So if anyone wants to come attack me for that take, I'm fine with it. Let's, uh, no, that's, that's fair. I mean, listen, if like Ryan Hartman had made this tournament, then I'd be like, all right. Bill Guerin is on one right now. I don't think that applies to this, although I am always here for, for conspiracy takes. Robertson, you mentioned him earlier. I think heading in certainly would have been a lock.

I haven't really gone back to look at prognostications of what people had at the start of the year. I assume he was on everyone's list. You look up, though, and five goals and 15 points and 25 games, he's got one goal in his last 17 games. Out of those 17 games, nine of them, he has just one shot on goal. He has the same number of 5-1-5 points in the season as Sam's deal on his own team. Our pal Jack Fraser had this chart recently of skating speeds for forwards in the league,

and Jason Robertson is quite literally the slowest player in the league this season. He's averaging 6.8 speed bursts of 18 miles. per hour per 60, which is behind Pat Maroon. And he's never been the fleetest of foot, certainly, right? Like that was always, that was the reason why he fell in the draft, why people were skeptical about him being a star or an actual star player or not a Dallas star. And last year, he was over 10 in that. And now he's down to 6.8.

So he's fallen off quite a bit there. I'm not sure how much of this is health, how much of this is confidence, what's going on. But you look at every metric, whether it's individual. ones or on ice ones. And it's been essentially a massive decline from two years ago when he peaked at 46 goals to last year and now to another bottoming out.

And the stars are able to get away with it at least right now in the regular season because they have so many contributors and that second line has been so good. But man, I feel like the drop-off for him here, it's deserved that he's not on his team because his play certainly hasn't warranted it and I think that's a big storyline.

Yeah, I agree with that. That's something where he was His play is definitely not deserving on this team. If he was on this team, I would have had a more frustrated take than the incorrect Matt Boldy take, because we're going to call it all that for right now. I'm just going to take that loss and let it go. But with Robertson, there is one caveat is he had the off-season. He had the off-season minor foot surgery, and that has come into play.

I've been told there is an element to he's not able to do everything. Now, to me, the biggest concern about Jason Robertson was, he was never fast. But before he was at least arriving on time, he knew he wasn't disrupting Rope A Hints. There's now been too many times this season where Rope Hintz had to slow down to make up for Jason Robertson's slower arrival time or not being in the right spot at the right time. That is where, that to me, is more concerning than the point production because that is, if you're limiting Rope Hints, no one should limit Rope Hints. He's one of the most fun in humans on planet Earth to watch play hockey. No one should do that.

The other thing about Robertson is, I think it's just once he had that 109 point season and everything like that, and we saw it last year, too, to an extent. And this year, it just kind of went forth. To me, Jason Robertson has always been like this ass shoot option type guy who did really well when basically he was making his decisions from, he had locked, basically started to load up a shot. And then he sometimes would pass out of that and sometimes he would shoot out of that. And that's where he did so much of his work. I think he has moved up so much on team scouting reports now and everything like that. And you look, he's just not getting shots through. Like when Bob and I were going through our piece earlier,

he had texting about it yesterday before writing our piece. Like he had like 577 shots on goal or whatever two seasons ago. He's on pace for like 440 this year. The attempts are similar. It's just more he's getting way more blocked. And basically teams are, I think part of that is the league-wide trend of people are blocking more shots in fronting. But in general, it's also Jason Robert. and I watch a lot of Dallas games, teams are closing on him.

They're basically making him make that decision, and he hasn't really been making the right decision out of it, and he hasn't added the other element offensively where all of a sudden you have to respect that shot again. And the piece Bob and I wrote today, one of the whole questions is, like, was that 109-point season? Was that the outlier, or is this the outlier? And that's the fascinating, long-term Jason Robertson question

that Jim Nill will have to make a very experience. expensive decision on after next season. Yeah, I'm definitely tracking that because I think there's just so many highly alarming indicators. The reason why I'm not upset at all about the boldy inclusion here is because I would argue that the two Rangers players on this list, I have much more of a bona pick with. Now with Trocheck, I mentioned he's one of the two actual right shots on this team, so I think that was certainly part of the appeal.

I think the other one was his face-off prowess where you look and there's been a hundred skaters in the league this year that have taken 150 draws. He's third in the league and win percentage behind only Barkov and Drew, and he's taken nearly twice as many actual volume of faceoffs as they have. You go in the power play and he's like 68% in terms of win rate and we talk a lot about how that's huge for getting set up immediately. I guess the issue though is the guy right below him in efficiency there is Dylan Larkin, who's also on this team and just a better middle of the ice bumper player on the

power play than him. So I think from like an overlap redundancy perspective, a lot of the appeal that you have for Trochec in terms of those skill sets isn't that big of a deal because Larkin just does it just as well or better. And then with Crider, I get that he's a very well-respected, not only player,

but also like from a skill set perspective, the net front presence, the tips, all of that, the disruption, his skating, his size, that's something teams all across the board for this tournament clearly valued and coveted. There's 49 U.S. forwards. here that have more points than Chris Crider and I don't even know in terms of net front it's like you

have Matthew Kachuk although he's a bit more of a sort of goal line player in the power play but you have Brady Kachuk I'm just thinking I'm a top unit power play I'm wondering how much of a role he's even going to play there he's going to be an extra forward and at that point if I had to pick or split hairs I would much rather take the upside of lightning and a bottle of tage Thompson blowing up in terms of a spectacle event like this with his highlight real goals or Cole call field's shooting ability and so i think those two are the obvious headscratchers for not only me but a lot of people who have been tracking this with with crider too is there any other player any other skater in this tournament that doesn't have an assist yet this season i i know it's i know it's it's a bit

of a but like he's he's got it's it's just i agree with you like i okay i do want to retract part of the podcast i want you to go delete all of that about the boldie take and just make me make me make me look smart and make it look like i railed against the rangers earlier do that for me Well, we've referenced it so many times now that if we did that, people would be like, why do they keep bringing up this map oldie take that I haven't heard yet? I know. I'm willing doing it. I'm good.

John, I want to talk to you about Brock Nelson because it feels like a lot of people have held the fact that he's on the New York Islanders. Against him here, you're talking about team success. And I feel like the general aesthetics or optics of what team you're on also matter. And I feel like if he had been on a different team this entire time, we would just be valuing him and describing him much differently. because you look last three years, 37, 36, 34 goals. He's on pace for 32 again this year. He's 10th in the league in 5-on-5 goals during that stretch of time.

He's massive. He puts the puck in the net. And you go by score logic. I think he's first and rush chances, fourth and scoring chances, second, and slot shots. Like, clearly just an awesome offensive player, especially, who scores a lot and creates a lot of chances. And I'm not sure how big a role he's going to play on this team. But I feel like all the dialogue about hit people being surprised. that he was included on this team USA team,

I feel like isn't really fair to the actual player he is if he just remove everything else. Yeah, I don't know about you guys, but he also is one of those players that when I watch him, he's not doing anything exceptionally well. Like if there was a scouting report on him, he's probably getting eight out of tens out of a lot of categories and no real, you know, five out of tens.

I think that plays into it. I'm fine with him being 13th forward or fourth line left wing or whatever you want to call. his slotting because of like if you want to pull the versatility card okay go with him but I think that my problem with the selections

otherwise is that they pulled the versatility card on maybe too many of them like I like Trocheck at fourth line center but without Crider there with him like I feel like you pick one or the other or I would prefer Crider to not be on the team

but yeah Nelson's a fine pick but I do understand why people were taken aback because he's not making headlines, he's not necessarily on highlight reels. And the way the Islanders play can be mind-numbing sometimes. And like he's also not, you know,

he's on the second line a lot of the times. Like he's not front and center necessarily, but I know that they, the management group is really preaching how, no matter what happens, we can put Brock Nelson on line 1, 2, 3, 4, penalty kill,

I guess power play. That would be pretty dire if he ends up on there, given the personnel that they have. And he can go wing, center. So I get it. It's fine. It's just when you roll that

into some of the other decisions, you start going, okay, did they overthink the bottom six? Yeah, he's also one of the more streaky scores as well. I think every goal scorer certainly has their highs and lows, but it feels like when he goes off, he's just rattling off goals and bunches. And I actually think in a tournament like this,

especially for a player who can either be in or out of the lineup is appealing because if he's playing really well, all of a sudden, you've struck gold. If not, it's not that big of a deal. I will quibble with you. I know you said that technically on the depth chart, he's on the second line. But in our hearts, any line that has Max Iplikov on it on the Islanders is line one. So I would say that Brock Nelson is, in fact, a first liner for the New York Islanders.

Let's take a break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump into it. We'll finish up Team USA. We'll talk about their blue line, the goalies, and then we'll go to Canada, Sweden, Finland and all that fun stuff. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the Hockey PEOCast, joined by Sean Shapiro and John Mattis. We're finishing up Team USA's Four Nation selections.

We did the forwards before we went to break. Let's do the defense now. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. I guess the only question I have is on the, who I view as the extra, I'm not sure how I'll shakeout. But I think Noah Hannafin and his left shot, I would have preferred maybe I'm just being way to bias because I just have loved this player for so long, but I think Mikey Anderson is just a superior player, especially in terms of defensive ability.

And so I would have maybe had him. I hear the case for John Carlson, Jake Sanderson, who I know you love, John as well. I think he was done in by the fact that he's played 200 minutes with Travis Hammannick this year, where they've been outscored 10 to 1 in those minutes. And the fact that out of 538 skaters

with 200 515 minutes this year, he's 12 in terms of low as PDO, and that does wonders, for portraying players in a negative light. So I wonder how much of that had to do with this. But I would have thought, you know, before when we started, we were talking about how this is groundwork for 2026. I would have thought that Sanderson actually would have been one of those guys

where as a seventh defenseman, that makes a lot of sense because he will almost certainly be a big factor for them in a couple of years. So that was my sort of quibble with it. But man, this is obviously a phenomenal group. I was looking at their 2014 defense corps in Sochi. and these are the names they brought. John Carlson, Justin Falk, Cam Fowler, Paul Martin, Ryan McDonough, Brooks Orpick, Kevin Shaddenk, Ryan Suter.

Obviously, some of those players were at different stage of their career than they are now, right? Especially Suter and McDonough, and John Carlson was like the young buck at that time, whereas now he would have been the grizzled event. But when you compare that, and I think that's a great sort of segue into talking about like just how much more talented, certainly the development program has been in the U.S. and the players they're working with because, man, this group they have now, with Hughes, McAvoy, Slavin, Fox, Werenzky, Faber,

Hanfen is just unbelievable, especially compared to what they were working with the last time we saw Best on Best. Yeah, I would say the rare benefit of not having international hockey for so long is that we get to see how Team USA has gone from competing for the gold medal to being the favorite, and a lot of it is based on this generation of Matthews, Hughes, Hughes, Maccaboy, etc. That age group that are right in their prime,

being the foundation of this team. And those type of players just weren't around before. And what sticks out about this blue line is, one, it's an amazing blend of two-way guys. Like, it's, I don't see a single hole there. Like, Hanifin, you know, whatever. Assuming he's the seventh guy, maybe he won't even play. If you have Hughes with McAvoy,

Slavin with Fox, and Werenstki with Faber. I mean, I see no issues there, like defensively, offensively, moving, all that kind of stuff. And actually, sport logic, their leaderboard as of Thursday morning, they have this all-encompassing stat called total defensive plays. So it's like block passes, D-zone denials, puck battle wins, stick checks, etc. So if you make a defensive play, it adds to your total. And it's not a perfect stat. I'm, you know, because obviously players who are playing defense a lot are going to make a lot of defensive plays. But nevertheless,

You have Slavin is third on that list. You've got Werenski 5th. And you've got Fox 12th and Maccoy 15th. That's across the whole league. So they've got four of the top 15. And the other players like Faber, still good defensively. Hughes, still good defensively. So it's honestly an embarrassment of riches.

Like I would even go as far to say that their blue line is more impressive than Canada's forward group as far as just one, two, the end of the list, the lack of drop-off and just the lack of holes or weaknesses. Yeah, I agree with John. You look at this and there's, you could slot guys in any order and you'd be like, oh, I'm fine with that. Like, there's no, there's no spot where you're all of a sudden, like, there's a clear drop-off here.

I'm a big fan looking at this group of, I'm just a big Zach Worensky guy. Like, I've always loved Worensky's game. and I think it's been kind of like overshadowed quite a bit because of the nature of all the junk that's gone in Columbus and how that that team's been poor and he's dealt with the injuries. And so like I'm really happy. One of the things that I, when this roster came out and getting to see this, like getting to see Zach Worensky in that tier of defensemen that I think he's in personally, that,

that to me is one of my favorite parts of this team USA roster because he's a guy who, they could have, luckily he didn't get the bad team knock against him or any. anything like that. And his play has definitely been tremendous. But yeah, across the board, like it's, if all of a sudden you were to go and say any of those, those, those, those, those duos or anything like that, if all of them, one of them is your top pair, like, you can legitimately roll three 20 minute pairs, like legitimately not be like, it doesn't matter. Like, you can just literally just roll them pickup style if you wanted to. Imagine being Adam Fox and you just entered this tournament after all the partner mishaps and questionable play that you've had to

dredge through this season in particular and then you're like oh my god i'm playing with jacob slave and i can do whatever i want and it won't matter it's such unbelievable just free reign just roam around the hockey iq the hockey iq on that sorry to interrupt the hockey iqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq and swayman i think it's kind of boring to talk about this because i think other than maybe an argument for ucsie saros they probably have three of the best four goalies in this entire tournament. I think if Thatcher DEMCO had been healthy, I think that would have been an interesting discussion

because then you'd have four guys and you'd be like, all right, who gets left out? It probably would have been swayman based on his play this year. I guess, Sean, does Jake Onger enter this tournament thinking, I'm the guy I should be starting these games? Does Jake think that? Yes. Yes.

Knowing Jake, that is what's going on. He's viewing Connor Helibuck's presence as a minor inconvenience. Yes, like, yes, that is Jake Oger's mentality. So yes, there's nothing, but to me, the bigger question is, do they play Connor Hellebuck every game or do they give Jake Otensure game? And that's a great question. Like, I've just pulled up the schedule as you're like, so they play US goes 13, plays February 13th. They play the 15th and the 17th. So they play, they have a day between every other game and I guarantee you like, so which game is Connor Hellebuck not going to play?

Because Hella book's definitely going to play the first game. he's not going to like you're not you're not going to not play him against canada in the second one and so are you going to so i i don't i i wonder if you talk about the depth is great but is anyone is is hella buck not going to play all three games that's uh that's the nature of this tournament being as short as was if it was a four game group play or whatever maybe maybe whatever but yeah i don't uh like the goal tending i think that's the funny thing about the goal to anything we talk about the depth and stuff like that. Like, I think for, for two countries, for Finland in the United States, I think we might see the same goalie play the entire time. And while for Canada and Sweden, it might be

more of the classic, hey, you both get game, you both, we're going to give each guy, we'll talk more about them in a minute. And my dogs are apparently contributing to this conversation. You'll get, you'll get one guy game one, one guy, game two, and then whoever has the better game gets from there on. Like, but it's, it's, Jake Andre's going to want the net, but it's going to be kind of hell of a book all three games, right? Yeah.

For Team Canada, you might get all three goalies within the same game, depending on how things go. All right. I think that's enough on Team USA. Let's move on to the next team. And I want to make the executive decision here because we've got about 15 to 20 minutes left before we got to go to break and move over to part two. Let's do Team Sweden here.

And then we'll save Team Canada because I think we're going to go a bit longer on it as the next section. and that's why we're kind of going in this weird order as opposed to just jumping naturally to Canada. Let's do Sweden. John, I think the thing people were most surprised by by this team because there's certainly a ton of firepower up front, right, with guys like Forsberg, Brat, Neelander, Kempay, Raymond,

like I think the creativity and just pure flare and juice and goal-scoring ability is off the charts here. I think the surprise, at least for me, was, seeing Victor Arbitson on this team, not that I don't think he's a hell of a player, but he hasn't played since November 12 and has really struggled to just stay healthy generally and hasn't even been that productive this season when he has been on the ice for the Oilers. And then Gus Nyquist as well. I get that he's a reliable veteran, has a lot of wing flexibility,

has the chemistry with Forsberg, of course, playing on the top line, although I doubt we'll see them necessarily in this tournament together. But I can't help but feel like I would have preferred to see them bring a guy like William Meckland, for example, just not only because of looking ahead to 2026, but also we've seen him thrive so much playing with another star player like Macklin Sellebrini this season. And I feel like in this format, getting to actually play with two top flight guys on a line would just give them a bit more upside if they are going to keep up offensively with the two North American teams. So that would be my one quibble here. Maybe I just love Eklund's game so much because I feel like I've watched

every second of Sharks hockey over the past couple weeks. But I think, that's sort of the entryway into talking about Team Sweden for me. Yeah, Sweden's interesting in a sense that these rosters are being announced, obviously, two months before the puck drops on this tournament. So, you know, there's pros and cons to that. And anyone listening, the reason why they did that is basically so that the players who aren't in the tournament can go book their vacation and have fun during basically a buy week. I mean, could they have done that within a month, probably?

So it's a little stretched out here, but nevertheless, they have two. two months to sort of sit with this roster. And Mika Zabinajad, not doing so well in the first quarter as far as producing to his potential. Philip Foresberg's numbers are down. And I don't know, Pedersen's obviously picked things up lately, but overall been a disappointment offensively this season. It's interesting. Obviously, those guys weren't going to be left off, but it's interesting that this is that one

team where you go, they probably look worse on paper now than they. will on the ice in February if certain guys get back on track. And then you look further down the lineup. And like you said, Victor Arvardson, again, it seems like they're using this two-month window to sort of hope that he recovers physically and gets back to the peak of his powers. And is that sort of pesky fourth-line guy. Nyquist may be a little bit of the same. And obviously, he'll have a big defensive role, I would think, with this team.

And then even Leo Carlson. Dees dealt with the odd small injury this year. Sweden's, from what I can tell, not afraid to be taking guys who they strongly believe in, even though whether it's health or performance hasn't quite played to their potential this year. And I, yeah, Eklon and McEl Backlin were the two names that I was a little surprised by.

Backlin, you know, I could understand the reason to leave them off because it's like you have a lot of two-way guys. So is it redundant? But at the same time, he's very reliable. You can just pencil him in there. He's not going to make mistakes. He's, you know, versus, say, Auguste Nyquist, I think it's maybe a sexier pick to take back in terms of like the reliability

and maybe the ceiling on the player. So, yeah, their forward group's quite interesting where there is firepower and there's some versatility in the bottom six. But we haven't quite seen every player individually play super-we. well this year. Well, when you have Pedersen, William Carlson, Alaslinholm, Joel Erick, down the middle as well, I think having Michael Backlin, he has to play a top line and center role for the flames. He would be more of a bit player on this team, but I agree he's been phenomenal, especially a 5-1-5 this year. I'd add Joel

Erickson-Eck to that list. He's out week to week right now with an injury. He's really been really banged up this year. I assume in two months, hopefully they're planning on him being better and being a dominant net front guy. I almost wonder, like, Mika Zabinijad had to be a this team because he was one of their first six that was announced back in June. He probably based on name brand would have still been on it regardless, but it's really tough to make a case for it based on his play this season and even dating back to last year as well. So hopefully over the next two months he'll be able to regain a little bit of the

confidence that he used to play with, but it's pretty dire right now. Sean, I was going to enter this, and I said this at the start of the year as well when I made Lucas Raymond one of my guys, that he was my. candidate on this team to really blow up in terms of perception at this tournament because playing on the spotlight, not that he plays in a small market, right, but Detroit has been so poor offensively in terms of that environment, all of a sudden getting to play with whoever in that top six on the wing and just fly around and be always open in the slot and converting from there, I feel like people would be like, man, Lucas Raymond has arrived as a legitimate star player.

I still feel that way, although now thinking about it. and more. I really feel like Adrian Kempe is going to be that guy on this team where no one really watches him that much in LA and he's just going to fly down the wing and score a couple of rock star goals and everyone's going to be like, oh wow, I didn't know this heading in, but Adrian Kempe is actually my favorite player. I think on Raymond, I think, and it's, I think Raymond and Larkin are going to have, I think like, I, I think they're both going to have great tournaments and I think it's just going to lead to way more public perception. And I know I'm going to get some Red Wings fans who get angry at me who are going to be like, wait,

they've got these two guys and they haven't somehow moved farther along in their rebuild. Like, I just feel like that's going to happen both Lark and Raymond in this tournament. I just feel like that's going to be the natural thing that happens. But yeah, I love, I love Campa's game. He's a great point out. The one I wanted to, the interesting thing, just to go back to John's point on Eklon, that was really, like, I remember reading like six or seven, like different Swedish media. outlets had reported he had made the team like for the past like like the past week or so right like

and so that was why that one was more surprising because in my head i had him locked into and and maybe i don't elite prospects is owned by a swedish company and so maybe that's why i've been seen more Swedish headlines lately and everything like that but so i'd assumed ecclan was going to be on the team so him not being on was more of a surprise because a lot of the times you see those reports about swedish players from sweden they're very rarely wrong um and so i that one that's why that one was more surprising me. The other one that just, just to kind of go back to John and Demetri point on the Arvitzin and Nyquist,

I wonder if there was a line of how many risks we're willing to take on younger guys, where it's like we're taking Leo Carlson, we're taking him, he's younger, where take, we're like at some point like the old hockey mentality of, hey, we need to have some old certainty. We can't take too much of that spot. But yeah. Yeah. I think that there's certainly.

part of that. I just think at Kland, you look, 23 points and 27 games, plus seven penalty differential, so creative in slippery offensive zone. He would have been fun here. I don't, yeah, I don't. On the Raymond point, I also will, and you experience his first hand, it feels like, I don't know, this is actually a thing, but man, he's such a big moment player in terms of scoring clutch goals whenever the Red Wings need it. And so him in this tournament as well from that perspective, I feel like it could lead to some theatrics. I want to quickly on Pedersen as well here. He's really bounced back over the past couple weeks. from whatever struggles where he lay him at the start of the year.

He scored five goals in his last 12 games, 13 assists after scoring just two in his first 12. And so when you're looking at, I think his resurgence or reemergence as a top flight guy means a lot for this team because as much as I love William Carlson's game and last Lynn Holman Joel Erickson-Eck, I think down the middle they really needed

like someone who can legitimately go head to head and win offensive minutes down the middle. And I feel like Pedersen actually has the ability to do so out of all of these guys. And so I think that's a huge development for them. And hopefully that continues on the blue line. Forsling, Dahlin, Headman, Carlson, and then Eckholm and Anderson with Jonas Brodine, who's banged up right now as well, seemingly, as everyone other than Caprizov and Minnesota is rounding this out,

pretty amazing group. Like, I'm curious to see how they sort of divvy up those minutes and who they play with who, but considering Foresling and Dahlian, we talked about Taze earlier and his perception because of the Sabres play, he's quietly had another awesome season as well for the Sabres. And so I think that's just an awesome Blue Line Group and really gives them an opportunity to obviously just go head to head with whatever Canada and America can throw at them. Yeah. And obviously, Victor Headman's had a fantastic season and building off what happened last year.

He's really, if you think about it, guys, like he's the superstar of Sweden as far as name value or just guys who you, I mean, I guess you could make an argument for William Nealander, but headman's kind of the guy, and I assume he'll be the captain. And then, you know, does he play with Dahlene? That could be fun if Dahlene's on his offside. Does it then go Foresling, Broding? Again, another lefty on the right side.

And then sort of, I don't know if it's a sheltered pair, but Eckholm and Carlson on the third pair, or, you know, does Anderson get in there on the right side instead of Carlson? That'll be interesting to follow, given Carlson was named to the team originally, and is this sort of icon in Sweden. Yeah, it's a pretty well-balanced group, very big. And I'm glad they took a guy like Ekholm, who probably most people thought was a lock. But I think that given what they're going to be up against with Canada and the U.S. and those forward groups, they need just straight-up stoppers. And they got them with a couple of these guys. I'm excited about the, and Demetri is going to love this i mean i'm excited about the continuous profile growing of forsling oh yeah because we saw it

throughout like like he was so we've we've waxed poetically about him throughout the playoffs last year like that to me i just another showcase for what gustav forsling does and and it's just to me i'm excited about that because i think we're finally gets um people paid attention to watch during the playoffs obviously saw what he did and paid any attention to the panthers at all know what forsling does but i think he's going to be the guy where he's I think he's going to be the guy that gives, that Sweden uses so that headman and Carlson and whoever, right, and Dahlene so they can try to get a little bit more offensive zone stuff, a little bit more of that. And so I think we're just going to hear over this three-day tournament,

we're going to hear how much Foresling frustrates top players in the world. And that's just going to be wonderful for the Gustav Foresling brand. Which is everyone who listens to the show. Yeah, just getting him and William Carlson out there together against the top lines. I feel pretty okay in those minutes and the ability to survive it. My joking, a mission here was going to be just especially catered for you, Sean, Neil's Lundquist, so they could have brought him along to sit on the bench and play as usual allotment of stars playoff minutes. No one else is better for the seventh role.

Yeah, I mean, Sean, what was that anecdote about him like skating during intermissions or something? What was that? Oh, that was a, so. it was demitri actually we are our boy Luke Chilcott our Luke yeah Luke Chilcott is the stars skating coach

was brought it up to Demetri's eye attention how much extra work Nils was doing between during the like the small gaps in play and doing during commercial breaks to to keep the edges ready because to get out there for when he was So he knows what it's like to be a seventh defenseman on a good team

get out of here, Razman. Anderson. That's what I'm saying. If you're picking guys for roles, they're going to be comfortable in from day one. I feel like bringing him along to sit on the bench makes a lot of sense. I'm mostly kidding here. But yeah, that was great because that was like during one of the most tense times of the playoffs as well, everything's like so serious. Right. And then shot and I are just making that joke. And then the star is skating coach Luke who's a who's a great friend of ours message. And he's like, yeah, you know, he actually, because I was genuinely curious. I was like, man, I'm reaching the age of my life where if I'm sitting in a one position for too long. I start getting incredibly sore and like it takes me five minutes and a bunch of audible sounds to stand up. And, uh, Neil Zunk was in better shape than I am, certainly, but that must be pretty tough if you have to go out for an occasional shift after sitting for for 25 minutes. And sure enough, he's like, no, he's actually in the tunnel just warming up and

making sure he's ready to go. So good stuff there. I was a bit, not surprised with Simon Edvinson's play and maybe it was just coming on too recently, uh, over the past couple weeks, but he's been such a great player for Detroit in terms of just getting more out of most cider. And him having a 53% high danger chance share on this Red Wings team is a remarkable feat for any player, let alone a young defenseman playing as much as he is. So just with an eye for 2026, I thought that he might get a bit more consideration there. Do you guys have anything on the goalies? Mark Stamol, Mark Gustafson here in terms of either usage, comfort level, any other notes on them or are we done with Team Sweden? to me that one is a classic who's playing

whoever's playing the best at that time probably gets game one and then they may not like I don't know like I mentioned it earlier like it feels like it's a classic you give game one and two to the two guys playing the best of the time then you see from there it's it's very it's a lot of time before all that changes because like old mark what he's done to start this year has not been the same but if he can find the form we've seen recently from him in the past recent years

the sudden you're like okay that's the guy john you got any notes on those on these guys or do you go to break the only thing i'll say is that they have three solid options and if you compare it to canada three up and down you know um difficult options uh to to project but here it's like arkstrom right now in this moment sure he's your starter but you know is it gustavson the first game that they play sure maybe all right let's take our break here we're going to move over to part two for podcast purposes. So check us out there. And we're going to go through the two remaining teams we haven't covered yet.

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