Every team at the 4 Nations Face-Off have now faced off against two of three opposing teams, and we’re now starting to get a better understanding of which teams are pretenders, and who are the contenders.
The United States punched their ticket to Thursday’s championship game Saturday with their 3-1 win over Canada, while the Canadians are looking to do so Monday morning against Finland. Sweden, meanwhile, needs a win over the Americans, while Finland appears to be on the outside looking in on it all.
Saturday night’s game had about everything you could ask for, with three fights in the first nine seconds and Canada taking an early lead thanks to Connor McDavid’s magical goal five minutes in. But that would be the only goal they scored, as the Americans played a tight game the rest of the way, successfully choking out Canada with Connor Hellebuyck having a tremendous performance in the crease.
An illness for Cale Makar and a struggling forward group further highlighted that Canada may have erred in setting their roster.
For one, McDavid ran through a number of wingers, starting with Sam Reinhart and Mitch Marner, rotating through the likes of Nathan MacKinnon, Sidney Crosby, Mark Stone and Brayden Point throughout Saturday’s game. What was clear is Reinhart and Marner aren’t fits for 97 as both seemed to struggle to keep up to his frenetic pace. It’s surely not an easy thing to do.
Oilers fans are well aware of the plethora of wingers who have flanked him in Edmonton since he broke into the league, and beyond the second half of the Dynamic Duo, Leon Draisaitl, arguably the best fit we’ve seen is Zach Hyman. He’s been stapled to McDavid’s side, spending a staggering 66 percent of all of his ice time with him in all situations.
And since they’ve been together, they have been absolutely electric. In 2,728 five-on-five minutes, they’ve scored 4.22 goals for per hour and generated 3.85 expected goals for per hour, while still posting very strong defensive metrics. They’ve been otherworldly on the power play, too, with 13.03 goals for per hour, nearly double the league average rate over that time.
For as great of a goal scorer as Hyman has been in Edmonton, racking up 136 regular season goals since arriving — the fifth most of Canadian players — it’s little things he does that make him work so well with McDavid. His biggest strength is his ability to play a heavy game, getting to the dirty areas of the ice to win puck battles and generate high-quality scoring chances.
Most importantly, though: Hyman knows how to play with McDavid, having a deep understanding of how the world’s best player operates and where he needs to be on the ice.
Doesn’t that sound like exactly what McDavid could use right now at the 4 Nations Face-Off? The problem is that Canada doesn’t really have a Zach Hyman on their roster right now. Reinhart and Marner haven’t shown an ability to win the puck battles required, and the roster begins to thin out when the likes of MacKinnon or Crosby are with McDavid.
Brad Marchand, who had a good first game, looked asleep at the wheel against the Americans in a game perfect for his style of play. Mark Stone was solid, but his foot speed isn’t near where it needs to be. Seth Jarvis, Sam Bennett, Anthony Cirelli, and Travis Konecny just aren’t it, either.
Brandon Hagel could be an option given his tenacious style of play, and Brayden Point could be another excellent option, too.
All in all, it harkens back to the roster construction of this Canadian team. Sure, Hyman didn’t have a good start to the season, scoring just three goals and eight points in 20 games. But everyone could see he was still generating the looks he always had, he just wasn’t able to convert.
It should be no surprise to find out that in the 30 games since the rosters were announced, Hyman has racked up 16 goals and 24 points. There are just seven NHL players with more goals than him over that time. What still comes as a surprise, however, is that Hyman — and for that matter, Evan Bouchard — didn’t get the benefit of the doubt of having such success with McDavid in Edmonton.
It’s clear there’s a number of players Hyman could replace on this team: Marchand, Jarvis, Cirelli and Konecny.
Time will tell if the Canadian management team fixes their error ahead of the 2026 Olympics.
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
