USA’s goaltending at the 4 Nations Face-Off will be as good as it gets
The 4 Nations Face-Off tournament set to take place in February is on our minds at Daily Faceoff today, as we’ve made our predictions for who we think will be on the roster.
What really stands out is the immense depth in net that the United States boasts with Connor Hellebuyck, Jake Oettinger, Jeremy Swayman, and then also with Thatcher Demko waiting in the wings. With these international tournaments usually being dominated by Canada, USA’s goaltending may be the key to finally beating them again.
Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk talked about the United States’ goaltending and the depth they have at the position going into this tournament.
Tyler Yaremchuk: You want to talk about differentiating, the biggest difference between this roster and Canada’s, and hey, Finland’s got one elite goalie, Sweden you could say “Okay they got two”, Canada is saying “Boy, we’d love to have one!”. USA goes “we got three of them!”, maybe four because Demko is cut.
Frank Seravalli: Yeah, and that’s tough. I feel for Thatcher Demko who’s very unlikely to make this team given his injury situation. It’s hard to inspire confidence, even though last year he was quite clearly at a Vezina level when he played with the Vancouver Canucks.
But you got to be confident in your picks, and this is a stout group as it is. Hellebuyck, Oettinger, and Swayman, you could make the argument, and I don’t know if you’d win with Juuse Saros in the mix, but that the US has the best three goalies in the tournament. Like, one, two, three. Not the totality of the trio, like one, two, and three, and they’re all the best goalie in the tournament.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Well, yeah, because when you think about who the other elite goalies are, they’re not playing in this tournament, there’s no Igor Shesterkin, there’s no Andrei Vasilevskiy, and there’s no Ilya Sorokin, right?
Frank Seravalli: Yeah, and that’s kind of what stands out is the US is going to have that nice backbone to lean on. Their question is: can they match what Canada’s forwards can do?
You can watch the full episode here…