Canucks projections for representation at NHL 4 Nations Face-Off tournament

For the more patriotic among hockey fans, we assume next season's NHL 4 Nations Face-Off tournament during February is something to look forward to, specifically if you're Canadian, American, Finnish or Swedish. As you'd imagine, this has led to various sports media outlets predicting the four respective rosters, each of which will include 20 skaters and three goalies.

From a Canucks point of view, this of course leads to the question of which of their players are likely to be included on said rosters? Well to begin with, what we can tell you is that the majority of any inclusions will be on the United States team.

The one guaranteed Canucks representative on the United States roster is Quinn Hughes, one of six players named last month. (The same of which, applies to the other three team rosters.) It's tough for anyone to argue against his inclusion, with him coming off a season where he led all NHL defencemen with 92 points.

Who else will make the United States roster?

In terms of the various media outlets projecting the United States roster, we specifically honed in on NHL.com, theScore and Bleacher Report. All of them were in agreement about including both J.T. Miller and Thatcher Demko.

Despite having now turned 30, Miller is coming off his best season yet in the NHL, with several career highs including 37 goals, 103 total points and a +32 rating. He also finished seventh in the NHL with 66 assists, and earned his first selection to the All-Star Game.

As for Demko, he also took his game to new heights in 2023-24, with career bests of 35 wins, a 2.45 Goals Against Average and .918 save percentage. He was named as a Vezina Trophy finalist for the first time, and you have to wonder if he might have won it, if not for a knee injury which caused him to miss playing time towards the end of the season.

The other name mentioned was Brock Boeser, albeit only Bleacher Report have him making the United States roster, while the other two placed him on a shortlist of omissions. Only time will tell what Boeser's actual fate will be, but the first 40-goal season of his NHL career at least gives him a solid chance.

As for Canucks players not even getting a look-in, the only player we can really think of is Dakota Joshua. who was tremendous during a career year in Vancouver. However, we fully acknowledge he's likely not in with a shout, given the blue-liners available to the United States.

Any Canadian Canucks?

Turning to the Canadian roster, no Canucks players were included, even on the shortlist of omissions. The one we would have liked included -- albeit by default given he's a recent free agent addition -- is Jake DeBrusk, but, similar to Joshua, he's well off the pace when it comes to forward options for Canada.

In respect of the Swedish roster, the one Canucks player universally expected to be on the roster is Elias Pettersson. This includes Sportsnet in place of Bleacher Report, who have not projected a roster for Sweden.

This is little surprise -- if at all -- to see Pettersson included, even allowing for the way his form dipped after the All-Star break, whether due to a knee injury or not. Despite not being one of the six guaranteed roster spots at this stage, in all likelihood he will be Sweden's first line centre, which more than speaks volumes about his talent level.

No other Canucks were mentioned even as shortlist omissions. (We will note that Elias Lindholm is projected to make the roster across the board, but we're not happy about it!) You could make a case for Nils Höglander, coming off career bests of 24 goals, 36 total points and a +23 rating, but as things stand he probably isn't going to make it.

Finally we come to Finland, which is easy to cross off, with Aatu Raty the only Canuck of this nationality on their roster. With just 15 career NHL games and three points to his name -- all back in 2022-23 -- he's going to struggle to even see any playing time with the Canucks next season, never mind anything else.

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