Canadian hockey is being tested with its four-nation roster, and it’s not looking good

Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim has never been a big deal. For seven seasons, he was a competent player on an incompetent team. But in the last few months he’s started to really come into his own.

It was a nice, unremarkable story about mid-career self-improvement. Until Wednesday evening. That’s when Sanheim was selected to represent Canada at the 4-Nation Face-Off in February.

“It’s a great honor,” Sanheim told reporters in Philadelphia.

That’s what everyone says. Few could have ever been more serious.

The Canadians, Americans, Finns and Swedes not only announced their ice hockey squads on Wednesday. They provided an overview of the current state of the game at the highest level. It’s a little blurrier than we’re used to.

The bottom line: Canada is still the best in hockey, but on paper it is no longer the best. As for the brand name, that’s probably the United States now.

It’s been a while since we’ve hosted a true international best-on-best tournament. That won’t be the 4 nations – not without Russia, the Czech Republic and Leon Draisatl. However, most still assumed that Canada would pick up where it left off. That all teams would look good, but Canada would look better.

That’s still true (or at least true) if you focus on the top forward lines. That’s why they were so careful from the start to announce the first six players from each team. Canada hears Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon and thinks, “This is going to be a fun parade.”

Now that we can see the full list, the star power has diminished. Those who made the 23-man roster include Sanheim, Carolina’s Seth Jarvis, St. Louis’ Colton Parayko, Montreal’s Sam Montembeault and Philadelphia’s Travis Konecny.

This isn’t a knock on Sanheim or anyone else. They know why he and she made the team – they’re top-notch professionals who don’t sulk when they’re not called upon to play on the power play. Every competing team needs these players. It’s just that Canada used to have to ask more of them to check their egos before they arrived.

The last time we did this properly – at the 2014 Olympics – it was different. The Sochi roster had so much depth that it wasn’t about who made it, but who didn’t make it – guys like Claude Giroux, Joe Thornton and Martin St. Louis (who later replaced Steven Stamkos).

This team was so full of talent that it was a story when Norris Trophy winner PK Subban was added to the roster (and another when he barely played).

This time there were none of those problems. Although I’m sure some players are upset tonight – Zach Hyman, anyone? – Nobody would be stupid enough to complain about it publicly. There are no obvious omissions. This is really as good as it gets.

Canada used to be afraid of hurting people’s feelings. Now it’s thinking about how to close all the holes at the back end. What would this team give for a PK Subban to complain?

The goaltending situation should and will continue to get the most play. None of Canada’s three goalkeepers would have made the American squad (let alone the Russian one). I’m guessing the starter will be the one who didn’t let in a few beach balls right before the tournament started.

Fortunately, Canada is inherently prepared for such problems. The prospect of an easy victory unsettles us, but an impending, inevitable loss? This is our national wheelhouse.

Expect two contradictory but complementary narratives in the next two months. At the top level there will be pessimism about how we managed to get this far. We’re still producing generational players, but the pipeline of average superstars is clogged somewhere. And what about net vacancy? Have they stopped selling goalkeeper protectors to children in Quebec?

Is money the problem (maybe too much of it)? Those responsible? All the scandals?

Someday someone will tell the story of how Bobby Orr didn’t get his first new pair of skates until he was 10 and then it wasn’t about hockey anymore. It’s an exercise in nostalgia.

This is all in preparation for disaster – for Canada not just to lose, but to emerge.

Running parallel to this line of reasoning, but directly beneath it, will be another, stronger line of thought. This starless Canada is the best Canada. This putting on the Maple Leaf turns Travis Sanheims into Larry Robinsons.

That’s why the four-nation clash will be such a big deal when it gets underway. It’s put Canada back in a binary hockey position – either we’re still the very best, or we’re disastrously over it. There is no in-between.

The more interesting scenario is a collapse of Canada. With the Milan Olympics just a year away at this point, many minds are sharpening so quickly that some are slacking off. Then it’s a national emergency. Remember when that was funny?

Part of the reason we are no longer obsessed with hockey being a binding force in this country is cultural change, but another part is laziness. For us it is a principle of faith that we have been and always will be the best since 1972 – even if we lose.

This illusion was easy to maintain because there had been no recent opportunity to test its veracity. An evidence-free environment always leads to bad information.

On Wednesday, Canadian hockey received its first test back from the lab. It doesn’t look great.

Apparently nothing has been decided yet. Several more tests are needed – up to four of them in Montreal and Boston. A diagnosis is still a long way off.

But compared to Team Canada’s past, this one so far is noticeably less sturdy than the usual beefy version we take for granted.