World Cup: Canada 4 Nations Tournament 2025 Roster Talk

[TheBeastCoast]

End of the day if you are going to beat them, get the excuses out of the way. Beat them with their best.

 

[NyQuil]

End of the day if you are going to beat them, get the excuses out of the way. Beat them with their best.

This is where I'm at.

 

[Frank the Tank]

If the outcome is that the US has a much more entertaining, skilled, better and more marketable player in the game, it's hard to really fault their decision-making.

What is the actual goal of this tournament? To showcase the world's best players against one another?

All of these silly substitution rules just get in the way of the overall objective.

The downside is that, unlike everyone else on the ice, Hughes will not have practiced or played with the team. So there's a little risk there, a risk I'm sure the US would love to take on if they could.

I do not disagree. I'm more just stating that the NHL (and any other org) arrives at a mature set of rules typically through teams exploiting loopholes (i.e., NHL salary cap rules). They didn't really think of a few items for the 4 Nations and it results in gray areas.

To extend your thought experiment on entertainment being the primary factor, Canada should be able to call in Wilson if he's healthy and able to make it to Boston. It would be good for the fans since the opening set of fights are what drove ratings on Saturday and the buzz afterwards.

 

[NyQuil]

To extend your thought experiment on entertainment being the primary factor, Canada should be able to call in Wilson if he's healthy and able to make it to Boston. It would be good for the fans since the opening set of fights are what drove ratings on Saturday and the buzz afterwards.

What's interesting is that Canada used to have a bit of a habit of parachuting guys into Team Canada at the World Championships during the tournament (in the 80s and 90s IIRC) as more and more players became available due to playoff eliminations.

They changed that policy early in the 2000s IIRC because it's not really fair for those guys who volunteered to go over there right after the NHL season was over and play in all of the round-robin games.

Competitively as well, it could screw up your chemistry, lines, powerplay units etc.

There's still the odd guy who comes over but for the most part, the line-ups are static once they are named.

Just a long-winded way of saying, based on what I know about Team Canada, I can't see them doing this even if they could. (unless it was McDavid or something)

 

[westc2]

I'd be completely fine with Canada bringing in Pietrangelo as well if he's healthy now.

 

[cneely]

His puck handling vs Finland was spectacular, which is one positive I'll give him.

He does have more points than Bennett, Konecny and Cirelli.

 

[NyQuil]

He does have more points than Bennett, Konecny and Cirelli.

Also more than Bedard and Scheifele.

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

He does have more points than Bennett, Konecny and Cirelli.

...he gets a negative score for each muffin he lets in...

 

[cneely]

Also more than Bedard and Scheifele.

There were a lot of opinions that we needed more defensive players than secondary scoring, and the way I'm seeing it, we're pretty much solely dependant on 97, 29 and 87 to score. They probably could have used the leading Canadian goal scorer to provide some much needed secondary scoring.

Oh well. It doesn't matter at this point. Here's to hoping Cirelli, Hagel, Jarvis et al find their games and are a big part of Thursday's win.

 

[Neil Racki]

Ah, the ol' Doc Ellis special.

LOL .. I dont think anyone got this reference but well done. From the Burgh no less, excellent.

 

[avsfan9]

Who cares if Hughes plays, rather him than Mcavoy, Hughes can’t bring the physicality that Mcavoy brought. He is skilled but redundant. I will take that trade off anytime.

 

[NyQuil]

There were a lot of opinions that we needed more defensive players than secondary scoring, and the way I'm seeing it, we're pretty much solely dependant on 97, 29 and 87 to score. They probably could have used the leading Canadian goal scorer to provide some much needed secondary scoring.

Oh well. It doesn't matter at this point. Here's to hoping Cirelli, Hagel, Jarvis et al find their games and are a big part of Thursday's win.

I was just teasing.

But you're right in that there's a bit of a recent trend where a Team Canada doesn't score enough goals and people start asking questions about the lack of available offensive firepower on the team.

In general I tend to agree with you and the premise that best-on-best offensive players are generally skilled and talented enough to play defence if they're asked to do so, and if a goal does need to be scored, you don't necessarily have to count shifts until the McDavid or MacKinnon line comes out again.