LAS VEGAS — As Team Canada makes its return to top-ranked men’s competition, it will do so with a group of players who have already won at the highest level of the game.
They just haven’t won together yet.
The first wave of players named to Canada’s 4 Nations roster announced Friday spans generations and will arrive at the tournament with trophy cases already full of past accomplishments: Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Cale Makar, Brad Marchand and Brayden Point.
Five of those six players are already Stanley Cup champions, and McDavid missed a game to join them earlier this week when his Edmonton Oilers were defeated in Game 7 by the Florida Panthers.
McDavid and MacKinnon were part of the North America 23-and-under team at the 2016 World Cup — the last major men’s tournament featuring top players — and will have their first opportunity to play alongside Crosby and Marchand at of the confrontation of the 4 nations.
Makar and Point will make their debut in the best versus best competition.
Crosby won gold medals at the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Games, as well as being a 2016 World Cup champion, and will be one of the few links to the golden generation of successful Canadians unprecedented on the international scene and who still play at a high enough level to be competitive.
Team Canada is assembled by Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney and will be coached by Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper. The rest of the list is expected to be announced in December.
Calendar of the 4 nations confrontations pic.twitter.com/IYXF3kAddA
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) June 8, 2024
Makar was a member of Canada’s 2018 world junior team and had previously been banned from team-wide international competition due to sexual assault accusations against five of his teammates.
Makar has repeatedly denied any involvement in the alleged incident in London, Ont., after an event celebrating that team’s gold medal victory. He was cleared to play in the NHL-run Four Nations Showdown and other international tournaments, including the 2026 Olympics, after going through an extensive screening process.
“After being selected by Team Canada’s leadership group to participate in the 4 Nations Tournament, Cale Makar participated in an additional third-party review of allegations involving Canada’s National Junior Team in 2018 and was cleared to participate in the tournament and future international events,” Hockey Canada said in a statement.
The 4 Nations tournament will be held in Montreal and Boston during a break in the NHL regular season. Canada will open the tournament against Sweden at the Bell Center on February 12.
Analysis of the first 24 players
It’s a predictable list of stars and superstars. All of them have won a Stanley Cup, an NHL award or something international – and several have won them all. Well, who’s surprised? Fans love to debate snubs, but that conversation can’t happen until the final teams are announced and the respective management teams have to be very picky, especially for the Canadian and American teams, because some very good players are going to be left behind. And if that player plays for your favorite team, well, fans tend to take that personally.
The fact that Canada named Brad Marchand in the top six is interesting, purely because at 36 years old, he is no longer in his prime. But it’s worth noting that his two fellow Nova Scotians, Nathan MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby, were also named, meaning coach Jon Cooper can, and most likely will, use them together as a line.
Gustav Forsling’s strong play over the past two seasons has propelled him into Sweden’s top six. If you had done this exercise two years ago, this selection might have mystified a lot of people.
Also: There might have been a temptation on Team USA’s part to immediately include Brady Tkachuk or Jack Hughes so we could talk about the brothers on the USA roster. Instead, they will have to wait. Quinn Hughes, the new Norris Trophy winner, is there, as is Matthew Tkachuk, the new Stanley Cup champion. In goal, 2024 Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck could have easily scored, but the United States – like Canada and Sweden – opted not to include a goalkeeper from the start.
Only Finland has done so. Juuse Saros, who appears to be a Nashville Predator for life, will anchor their lineup, alongside two Dallas Stars defensemen, Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell, and likely led by Aleksander Barkov.
This exercise is primarily a publicity stunt and reminds me a bit of what they used to do with Olympic rosters. They would name eight players for the initial team, then fill in the others as the competition approached.
And of course, nothing is ever written in stone. Hockey is a body contact sport. Injuries happen. If a player were injured before the matches, he could be ruled out almost until the start of the competition.
I only remember it being semi-controversial once, in 2002, when Canada named its first eight players and didn’t include goaltender Patrick Roy. Instead, they went with seven easy picks: Rob Blake, Chris Pronger, Scott Niedermayer on defense, plus Joe Sakic, Paul Kariya, Steve Yzerman and Mario Lemieux on offense.
The eighth pick was Owen Nolan, who, by the time the Olympics rolled around, wasn’t really a key player anymore.
In November 2001, Roy announced that he would not play for Canada, ostensibly to rest up until the end of the season and the playoffs. Many believed at the time that had Roy been named to the original eight, he would have chosen to play. Instead, Canada selected Martin Brodeur, Curtis Joseph and Ed Belfour in goal. In the end, it had no impact on the outcome: Canada won its first gold medal in 50 years at the Salt Lake City Games.
But these announcements rarely pass without sparking some controversy. Three of the NHL’s top five scorers last season – Russians Nikita Kucherov and Artemi Panarin, as well as Czech David Pastrnak – are not competing because their countries were not invited. This leaves JT Miller of East Palestine, Ohio as the top scorer not to immediately qualify for a 4 Nations team. Miller finished ninth in NHL scoring. Could he have been selected before Adam Fox or Charlie McAvoy? Maybe. But it’s hard to call it a snub or an oversight until the final rosters are revealed. We can save our bile for that. — Eric Duhatschek
Required reading
(Photo of Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid: Charles LeClaire/USA Today)