SAN JOSE – The 4 Nations Face-Off begins Wednesday, and among San Jose Sharks players, there is various levels of enthusiasm.
“I’ll probably watch it,” defenseman Jake Walman said. “I’ll be on a beach watching it — a little more comfortable watching it in the stands somewhere.”
“If it’s on and I’m not doing anything, I’ll watch,” forward Barclay Goodrow said. “But the break is a nice chance to just get away from hockey and not think about it.”
“I’ll be busy on vacation, so I probably won’t watch it,” defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic said. “I’ll probably see the scores online with the ESPN app. But no, I probably won’t watch it. I’ll watch the Olympics.
“(The 4 Nations is) made up for the NHL to make money.”
Still, since the NHL hasn’t had its top players to compete in the Winter Olympics since 2014, when Vlasic was a member of Team Canada, this might be the next best thing.
The 4 Nations Face-Off features most of the best players from Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland, and gives stars like Connor McDavid, San Ramon-born Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mikko Rantanen a chance to play in this type of event for the first time in their professional careers.
Each team will play each other once round-robin style. Teams earn three points for a regulation win; two points for an overtime/shootout win; one point for an OT/shootout loss and no points for a regulation loss. The two teams with the best tournament records advance to a one-game final.
For fans who have wanted to see Canadians McDavid and Sidney Crosby play together, or see Matthews compete alongside fellow Americans Jack Hughes and Matthew Tkachuk for the first time as professionals, this tournament is for them.
“But I’ll be watching all those guys,” Sharks rookie forward and Boston native Will Smith said, “and rooting for the Americans.”
The event is also meant to whet the appetite for the 2026 Olympic Games in Italy, where NHL players are also slated to participate. The Sharks do not have any players participating in the 4 Nations, but Macklin Celebrini could be in the mix for Team Canada next year, or for the 2030 Winter Games in France.
Celebrini played for Canada at last year’s World Junior Championships and will probably be under consideration to play for his country at the World Championships later this year in Sweden and Denmark.
“Playing for your country in the Olympics is something that I dreamed of as a kid,” Celebrini said. “So to do that would be really cool.”
Vlasic got to experience that at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. He and former Sharks forward Patrick Marleau were part of a powerhouse Canadian team that stifled opponents throughout the tournament, outscoring them 17-3 in six games on its way to capturing the gold medal.
Vlasic cherishes that memory, along with the World Cup of Hockey title he won for Canada with Logan Couture, Joe Thornton, and Brent Burns, and he still questions why the NHL skipped taking part in the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea.
Officially, the NHL did not break for the 2018 Games because of a dispute between the league and the International Olympic Committee over who would cover costs for travel, insurance and accommodations, amid other concerns. The IOC had covered such costs before, but did not wish to do so in 2018.
“The (NHL) scrapped it in (2018) because they wanted the money,” Vlasic said. “But that’s how you grow the game, and down the road, that’s how you make money, by growing the game. So it’s unfortunate that we weren’t there in 18, the players that had the opportunity to go in 18 couldn’t go. It’s unfortunate. You don’t get many chances to go. It’s every four years. But I’m glad we’re back. (Stinks) that it was gone for 11 years. It shouldn’t have been.”
In Dec. 2021, the NHL and NHL Players Association jointly agreed to not participate in the 2022 Games in Beijing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So the 4 Nations tournament, hosted by both the NHL and NHLPA, seeks to at least partially scratch that long-awaited itch for best-on-best hockey, even though Russia and other hockey-playing countries are not taking part.
Banned from taking part in international events because of its invasion and ongoing war in Ukraine, Russia was not invited, and other countries, such as Czechia and Germany, do not have enough representation in the NHL to take part. Having just four countries take part allows the league to complete the event in nine days.
It’s still unclear whether Russia will be allowed to take part in next year’s Olympic men’s hockey tournament, or the 2028 World Cup of Hockey.
“This is just a (one-off) tournament. It won’t happen again,” Vlasic said. “I just find it weird. Obviously, Russia can’t be there because (they’re banned). But the Russian team would be very dangerous. (Czechia isn’t) there either. … Honestly, 2026, the Olympics, that’ll I’ll watch. This. I won’t watch.”
Originally Published:
Source: Paradise Post