The US, Canada, and Sweden all have a little black and gold in them for the upcoming tournament!
Speculation about the 4-Nations Tournament has abounded since it’s announcement, particularly about who would grace what roster (and what they would do given that a couple of nations have been excluded) for each team, and now; we have our answer, as each roster has been announced for the tournament, and a handful of Bruins will be suiting up for three of the four squads!
Team USA: Backstopped by Boston
Gonna be real, I’m not 100% on bringing so many Rangers to the tourney; especially with how bad they’ve been, and I’m not 100% on leaving someone like Tage Thompson at home, but otherwise this is as strong a roster as the States can put together. After all, they’re taking a couple of big time B’s with them!
The Americans will be bringing defender Charlie McAvoy and goaltender Jeremy Swayman with them. Given that Swayman is in a goalie pool with Jake Oettinger and Connor Hellebuyck, I really don’t anticipate him being much more than a perma-backup. A real shame, since Swayman has plenty of Team USA experience; including the Orchard Park outdoor game where Team USA played in Bills-inspired sweaters with the World Junior squad back in 2018.
McAvoy meanwhile has been in the NHL so long he’s barely had the opportunity to play for Team USA; his last time donning their sweater being in 2017 for the World Championships, where he had 9 points in 6 games.
Given how drastically the US has pumped quality talent into the league, It’s hard not to be at least a little optimistic about the States’ chances as potential winners. It’s lightyears ahead of the roster the last NHL-sanctioned international tournament ran, that’s for goddamn sure.
You can check out the rest of the roster here.
Team Canada: Verminous Leadership
Team Canada is as good as they usually are at forward; with a treasure trove of offensive and defensive options, and their defense looks better than I thought it would…but man that goaltending corps looks awful. It’s very strange just how badly Red and White (and sometimes Black) has handled goaltending development at just about every level of the game.
Their Bruin this year ought to know enough about struggling goaltender performance and how to work out of it, so maybe it’s not so bad?
Brad Marchand will be the sole representative for Team Canada from the Bruins, and it’s been a hot minute since he’s been able to take on the Maple Leaf in any way other than eliminating them from the Playoffs. He last played international dates with Canada when playing in the 2016-17 World Cup of Hockey, where he won that stupid plastic vase; something I will never, ever, ever let you forget.
Photo by Andre Ringuette/World Cup of Hockey via Getty Images
As for the rest of the roster? With a forward corps like that, they can go as far as they want to. With that goaltending corps on the other hand…they can also lose as much as they want.
You can see the rest of their roster here.
Team Sweden: Lindholms Sent
At the beginning of the year; there was a pretty good chance that Boston would be handing off both Lindholms to Tre Kronor, but given that Hampus Lindholm’s injury appears to be worse than expected, it appears they’ll only get one of them.
Team Sweden will be getting Elias Lindholm to bolster their Center Corps. Lindholm hasn’t been on Team Sweden for quite some time; last playing at the World Championships in 2019. He had 6 points in 8 games.
Photo by RvS.Media/Robert Hradil/Getty Images
As for the rest of the roster? It’s about as Team Sweden as you can get. No real surprises, frankly I would’ve tried to get Fabian Zetterlund onto this team, but otherwise they will be a smooth skating nightmare of a team to try and score on. Time will tell if they actually end up being as dangerous as the US or Canada, but I think they could be a constant threat hanging over the tourney.
You can see the rest of their roster here.
Team Finland: Bruin-less
Team Finland has the classic problem of being really good at most areas, but critically flawed in one specific part of the game that will cause them a heartbreaking loss. That right side in particular looks like the kind of nightmare you wake up sweating from. They’ll also end up not having a Boston Bruin, so unfortunately we can’t have a rooting interest, officially.
That said, I think they’ll be competitive based on the power of their forward talent alone. The FIN-SWE game is gonna be an absolute heater for that kind of thing.
So! With all these set, there’s always the chance that players could drop out, and another Bruin could find their way to the 4 Nations Tournament. But until that time…
Congrats to Charlie McAvoy, Jeremy Swayman, Brad Marchand, and Elias Lindholm for being selected! Go out there and bring home the gold!