It’s been a minute since we were last able to talk about best-on-best men’s ice hockey competition. The last such tournament was the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, which took place in Toronto almost a decade ago.

But the next such tournament is only a half a year away. The gaudily titled NHL 4 Nations Faceoff will feature the best that Canada, the United States, Sweden, and Finland can offer, all competing against one another for the first time since 2016.

The tourney takes place between February 12-20, 2025, and is split between Montreal and Boston. The format, in which only a select four countries are allowed to compete, has drawn some criticism, controversy, and questions about whether these games stand as true ‘best-on-best’ competition on the same level of a World Cup or Olympics. But make no mistake: the incendiary status of Russia in geopolitics aside, these are the four best hockey nations in the world, and they will be sending the very best players they can muster up.

Among their number should be several members of the Vancouver Canucks, and we’ll preview their participation below.

As of right now, only one Canucks has been named to one of their national teams, and that’s captain Quinn Hughes of Team USA.

The four teams involved in the 4 Nations Faceoff each named their first six players at the end of June, and Hughes was one of them for the Americans, beating out brother Jack and several other notables for the distinction.

The reigning Norris Trophy winner joins an American blueline that includes the also-already-named Adam Fox and Charlie McAvoy. Also in the running to join that blueline, albeit as a bit of a dark horse, will be Hughes’ other brother, Luke.

Will Hughes wear a letter for Team USA? As an NHL captain, there’s always a chance, but with several others with more international experience expected to make the cut, his odds seem a bit slim. His odds of playing a major on-ice role are much higher.

There was a mild shock that Elias Pettersson was not named as one of Team Sweden’s initial six players, beaten out for the honour by William Nylander, Mika Zibanejad, Filip Forsberg, Victor Hedman, Erik Karlsson, and former Canuck Gustav Forsling.

But that was perhaps to be expected after a tough second half and playoff performance for Pettersson. It’s nothing compared to the shock that would follow from his not making the team at all, which seems next-to-impossible, barring injury. Pettersson will play for Team Sweden, and he might even be their number-one centre by the time the actual tournament takes place. Really, his only major competition there will be Zibanejad.

There are those who probably think an international tourney right in the middle of the 2024/25 campaign is the worst sort of distraction for Pettersson. There are others who see it as a further opportunity for him to grow his game. With it still being more than six months away, it seems safest to bet that the narrative will be determined by how well Pettersson plays to kick off 2024/25. If he’s rolling prior to the tournament, the risk of him getting off that roll seems lessened.

In a just world, JT Miller would be a lock for Team USA. Not only is he one of the top American scorers in the world, but he also does a pretty good job of embodying American hockey ideals out there on the ice.

It is only as a testament to the preposterous depth of this upcoming USA roster that we have to state that Miller is not an outright lock – just very, very likely to make the team.

At centre, Miller is in competition with the already-named Auston Matthews and Jack Eichel, as well as the likes of Jack Hughes, Vincent Trocheck, Dylan Larkin, and Tage Thompson. That’s as stacked down the middle as it comes.

Now, over the past two seasons, Miller has outscored all of those players except Matthews. Combine that with his recently sharpened defensive skills and the overall tenacity and versatility of his game, and GM Bill Guerin and Co. would seem foolish to leave Miller at home. And yet it’s not inconceivable.

In actuality, we see Miller slotting in at either 4C behind Matthews, Eichel, and Hughes or on the wings, where he’s equally comfortable – though spots on the wings will also be hard to come by, as we’ll cover in the Brock Boeser section.

Another player that we really should be able to describe as a lock for Team USA and another that we just can’t.

Coming off a second-place finish in the Vezina Trophy race for 2023/24, Thatcher Demko can rightly be called one of the best goaltenders in the world. The issue is that a lot of the other best goalies in the world also hail from the United States of America, including Connor Hellebuyck, the guy who actually won the Vezina this past year.

And there are at least two other playoff-tested starters in Jake Oettinger and Jeremy Swayman available. The tough truth here is that America has four ‘A+’ netminders and can only bring three of them. It’s a good problem to have, but it means that someone who deserves to be there is staying home.

Will that player be Demko? At this point, it’s impossible to say. That depends entirely on how quickly and how well Demko returns from injury, in direct comparison to the performances of the other three goalies. The first few months of 2024/25 will be a mini-competition of sorts for this quartet.

Only one other American scored more goals than Boeser last year, and it was Matthews. And yet, we can’t call Boeser a lock either. Not even close, actually.

We already covered how Team USA has centres Matthews, Eichel, Hughes, Miller, Larkin, Thompson, and Trocheck available. At least a couple of those centres will make the team as wingers.

Then there’s the actual wingers, including already-named Matthew Tkachuk and Jason Robertson, along with some other near-locks in Brady Tkachuk. Boeser falls into the next tier of potential candidates. But it’s a big pool that includes names like Clayton Keller, Chris Kreider, Jake Guentzel, Matt Boldy, Kyle Connor, Cole Caufield, Johnny Gaudreau, Alex Tuch, and more.

Is Boeser good enough to make this team? Yes, undoubtedly. But with only 6-8 wing spots to fight for in the first place, there are going to be plenty of ‘good enough’ players cut from Team USA all the same. Boeser’s playoff heroics might give him a leg-up, but a slow start to 2024/25 will cancel that out pretty quickly.

Boeser needs to maintain showcase mode if he wants to seal the deal before February.

The five above are probably it for Vancouver’s representation in the NHL 4 Nations Faceoff. If there’s one more name we can throw out there for consideration, it’s Nils Höglander.

Make no mistake: He’s a long shot. But then we should mention that Höglander finished 10^th overall in Swedish goal-scoring last season, outscoring the likes of Gustav Nyquist, Elias Lindholm, and William Eklund, each projected to make Team Sweden.

Points-wise, however, Höglander only finished 22^nd overall. That he’s been able to put up so much scoring while playing a lot in the bottom six may be a point in his favour, as bottom-six duty would be the absolute best he could hope for in this tournament. But suffice it to say that if Höglander doesn’t take another enormous step forward in the opening months of 2024/25, he’ll probably be on the outside looking in.

Yeah, not really.

A really explosive breakout campaign from Jake DeBrusk still probably doesn’t get him anywhere near Team Canada.

Conor Garland and Dakota Joshua have great chemistry, but both are well down the depth charts for Team USA.

Team Finland is easily the roster with the least depth, but the Canucks have no Finns on their active roster. Aatu Raty would first need to make the team and then have a dynamite rookie campaign to get into the conversation.

Were this a more expansive tournament, it’d be a sure bet that Filip Hronek, Pius Suter, Teddy Blueger, and Arturs Silovs would be representing their respective countries. But it’s not, so they won’t.

The Vancouver Canucks will almost certainly be limited to just five players or fewer in the NHL 4 Nations Faceoff next February.