4 Nations Face-Off Squad Rankings: America’s Golden Age is here

The squads for the 4 Nations Face-Off have been revealed. Now it’s time to analyze them.

Putting together a team to represent Canada, Finland, Sweden or the United States is no easy task. When it comes to fit and use, there are a lot of difficult decisions to be made at the sidelines; It’s not as easy as picking the top scorers and saying “done.” How each team comes together in a short tournament can be more important than how good each team is on paper.

Still, it depends on what talent is actually gathered, and that’s what we want to talk about here.

Here’s a look at how each country fared for the tournament, from best to worst. Predictions for the expected course of the tournament follow below.

United States

This is America’s golden age and its tournament to lose.

No team is deeper than Team USA, a group that has no holes throughout its roster and is stacked at every position. There are no real flaws here as the US finally has the high-end talent to rival Canada, particularly superstars at center and defence.

The oversupply of centers (the US brings seven) means some people will be on the rise. Could this mean that Jack Hughes (who isn’t particularly good at drawing) is at the top alongside Auston Matthews and Matthew Tkachuk? It definitely feels like a perfect fit. America’s strikers are characterized by great versatility and many interesting options for making the characters fit with a strong mix of different skills. This should make it easier to produce the chemistry, which is a big plus.

Still, I think there might be some regret for not bringing Tage Thompson along. The only area where the US still lacks compared to Canada is pure firepower – an area where Thompson’s presence would have filled the gap. Having both Vincent Trocheck and Brock Nelson – both great and worthy players – feels a little redundant.

Team USA’s forwards are slightly behind Canada’s, but they more than make up for it in defense and between the goals. America’s blue line is deep. Quinn Hughes and Adam Fox are the three best defenders in the world and Zach Werenski is playing like one this season. Charlie McAvoy, Jaccob Slavin and Brock Faber are all great shutdown defenders, giving the USA three excellent pairings with complementary skills. Put that in front of Connor Hellebucyk, the best goalkeeper in the world, and this team will be extremely difficult to break into.

Hellebuyck, Jake Oettinger and Jeremy Swayman are the ultimate trump cards here, as the US and Canada have otherwise similar rosters according to their net ratings. And that is a huge difference. It is The That’s why the United States is the team to beat.

Canada

For the first time in a long time, Canada is not the team to beat. Not only have the Americans closed the talent gap, but they have also arguably overtaken the Canadians on paper.

Canada has a lot of firepower throughout the lineup and that will be their biggest advantage in this tournament. With Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar, Canada has three of the five best players in the world – a huge advantage. Even after that, the team is full of offensive talent; The rise of Sam Reinhart to one of the best players in the world is particularly helpful. There’s a growing identity of gutsy ability evident across the lineup – particularly among some of Canada’s smartest backs – which should make Canada annoyingly difficult to play against.

There’s obviously a lot of talent here and that’s why Canada enters the tournament with the highest offensive rating of all teams, just ahead of the USA. In comparison, there are some issues on defense as Canada has the lowest defensive rating of any country.

That starts between the goalposts, where Jordan Binnington may be Canada’s best option, but probably the eighth-best goaltender in the tournament – a bad sign considering there are only four teams.

The problems extend beyond that, with a back end that isn’t as robust as what Canada touted in its golden era. Makar is great and so is Josh Morrissey – but everyone else has question marks. Devon Toews hasn’t looked like himself this season, while Alex Pietrangelo and Shea Theodore have died in five-on-five combat in Vegas.

That may have led to some safe choices in Travis Sanheim and Colton Parayko, although it’s questionable whether either has the high-end dynamic skillset to make the most of Canada’s offensive strengths. Leveraging Canada’s overwhelming offensive advantage with Evan Bouchard on defense (especially given his improved defensive play last year) would have significantly closed the gap between Canada and the United States. Instead, Canada played it safe with Eric Brewer of this era, and as a result he enters the tournament with the third-best blue line.

Canada is still full of talent, but the team definitely has some weaknesses that can be exploited. More than usual. The Canadians are strong enough to win, but the Americans look a little better.

Sweden

As always, Sweden’s greatest strength lies in the backend. The selected group still provides excitement, especially considering how strong Victor Hedman has looked this season. He is currently at his best and should lead a deep blue line that features an elite shutdown trifecta of Mattias Ekholm, Gustav Forsling and Jonas Brodin. It is the second-best defensive group in the tournament.

However, there is a reason why Sweden is clearly third fiddle here behind Canada and the USA. Although its goalkeeping skills are better than Canada’s, Sweden still lags significantly behind the USA between goals. The bigger problem, however, lies up front, where Sweden lacks the same top talent as Canada, the US and even Finland.

Elias Pettersson, William Nylander and Filip Forsberg are all great players – they are franchise caliber. But they wouldn’t be among the top three forwards on any of the other three teams. That’s a big disadvantage when the team is up against McDavid, Matthews and Aleksander Barkov. As deep as the team’s defense is, the same applies here. Hedman was great, but he’s no Makar, Hughes or Miro Heiskanen.

On the front line, Sweden also lacks secondary weapons beyond the big three. Jesper Bratt is a wonderful player, but the gap to him is pretty blatant. Mika Zibanejad’s epic fall from grace this season really hurts.

The Swedes will be a tough opponent, but there is quite a gap between them and the two North American heavyweights.

Finland

The Finns have a strong core of talent at the top, even more than Sweden. With Barkov, Mikko Rantanen, Sebastian Aho, Roope Hintz, Miro Heiskanen and Juuse Saros, Finland has a very special group of top talent that can compete with some of the best that Canada and the USA have to offer. It also helps that a lot of it is concentrated in the middle, as is the case with the Finns right there with Canada and the USA at the center of talent.

The problem is that there simply isn’t enough elsewhere. Finland is still lacking secondary talent, and that’s evident in both their final six players and any defenders not named Miro Heiskanen.

Finland has a reputation for being playful and has the will to make every game more interesting. Having the second-best defensive rating behind the USA and second-best goaltending can help, but that’s probably Finland’s only path to victory. The other three nations have more opportunities to move forward and therefore Finland will be a significant step behind the competition in every game of this tournament.

The chances

It’s no surprise that the United States and Canada came out on top here, winning the tournament 78 percent of the time. That doesn’t mean Sweden and Finland shouldn’t make an effort to perform, but given the difference in talent, their chances of making a splash in even a short tournament are slimmer.

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The athlete. Photos: John Russell, Kevin Sousa, Mark LoMoglio / NHLI; Ethan Miller/Getty Images)