If it were a 5 Nations Face-Off with Czechia invited, where would Czechia finish?

[dalewood12]

As a point of reference, here is a projected Czechia lineup from Steven Ellis at Daily Faceoff, had Czechia been invited:

Ondrej Palat – Pavel Zacha – David Pastrnak
Tomas Hertl – Martin Necas – Jiri Kulich
Jakub Vrana – Radek Faska – David Kampf
Ivan Ivan – Filip Chytil – Jakub Lauko
Tomas Nosek

Jan Rutta – Filip Hronek
David Spacek – Radko Gudas
John Ludvig – David Jiricek
Stanislav Svozil

Lukas Dostal
Karel Vejmelka
Petr Mrazek

Click to read more...

 

[I am not exposed]

5th. Finland and Sweden are better on paper.

 

[tmg]

If Finland was healthy and you’re comparing each country’s healthy best, that Czech team finishes 5th.

In this scenario, but with Finland icing the injury decimated team they did? That Cze team might slip past into 4th. I still think they’d be an underdog to finish ahead of Finland but it would be a closer call.

 

[ACC1224]

They'd finish in the top 5 for sure.

 

[Eternal Leaf]

Fifth.

Maybe they pull an upset on Finland but doubt it.

 

[Fatass]

It will be fun to see all the best hockey nations at the 2026 Olympics. A hot goalie in the knockout games and the Checks have a shot, like in ‘98.

 

[KevinRedkey]

Anyone can win 1 random game in a tournament like this, so they would maybe finish ahead of Finland - but on paper I'd say they'd finish last. Their D would be their downfall.

 

[Suntouchable13]

David Kampf on the third line, lolll. The guy is bad. 5th place, and not even a single win.

 

[SelltheTeamFrancesco]

Who knows but with Lukas Dostal he could stand on his head like he has all year and who knows at that point.

 

[devo09]

They would finish 6th

 

[Summer Rose]

I voted fourth. I agree that they'd have had the weakest roster on paper, but the rosters "on paper" don't always indicate the results (though you can often predict the results based on them given a large enough sample size). My gut feeling is that they'd have managed to steal a win and possibly take another team to overtime.

 

[Coffee]

4th and would not be surprised to see them go finals

 

[bobbyking]

what about russia

 

[Grifter3511]

It will be fun to see all the best hockey nations at the 2026 Olympics. A hot goalie in the knockout games and the Checks have a shot, like in ‘98.

Dominik Dostal to the rescue.

 

[dalewood12]

what about russia

This will be my next poll!

 

[Bouboumaster]

Better team than I expected, but they'd finish 5th

They lack firepower up front, depth on bottom 6 forward and on their defense squad, and high end talent between the pipes

 

[biturbo19]

Probably 5th. Weird stuff can always happen and "that's why they play the games", but that's where they'd end up on paper.


Now...if they fielded a "reunited Czechoslovakia" mashup team...suddenly that starts to move things a little closer to an outside shot at the podium or Top-4.