I was wrong about the 4 Nations Face-Off. It was awesome.

Some thoughts on a tournament that defied my expectations coming into it.

I initially had zero plans to watch the championship of the 4 Nations Face-Off.

See, I’m a hockey writer and hockey nerd, but I’m also on vacation with my wife right now in Hawaii — a trip we intentionally planned around a break in the NHL schedule¹ — so even turning on the TV in the hotel felt like a ridiculous concept.

I was also amongst the people wondering, rather publicly, if this four-nation exhibition was going to mean anything. It’s why I wrote this piece back in late January about international hockey mattering and proclaimed this was only an appetizer for the 2026 Olympics.

When does international hockey really matter?

Appetizer or not, the 4 Nations Face-Off delivered beyond my expectations, really within the first minute of the competition when a power play unit featuring Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, and Sidney Crosby combined for a goal in less than a dozen seconds against Sweden last Wednesday².

The back-to-back rivalry games between Sweden and Finland, followed by the first USA-Canada game where a blast, and perhaps the only disappointment of the tournament was the fact that USA-Sweden game on Monday night had zero meaning and was closer to a glorified exhibition game that I originally thought this tournament would be.

Part of it was the lack of best-on-best hockey since 2016³, part of it was the geo-political implications thrust onto this tournament by the ongoing tensions over tariffs being imposed by United States⁴ on imports from Canada.

But in the end, the real juice to this tournament came from the players themselves. The fight night in Montreal, even if the definition of a staged fights, was an example of how much this tournament meant to the players. The NHL players have been pushing and fighting to be able to represent their country for more than a decade, it’s always a sticking point in the collective bargaining agreement, and they weren’t going to let this event be a letdown.

So with all that in mind, I changed my plans for Thursday, after initially thinking I could simply ignore the 4 Nations Face-Off ever existed, I made plans to watch the championship game.

And the game itself delivered, an instant classic, something people will actually remember, even if the 4 Nations Face-Off is a one-off that will be replaced by the World Cup of Hockey in 2028⁵.

Canada won 3-2 in overtime when Connor McDavid scored, putting an exclamation point on an overtime session that had been dominated by Jordan Binnington⁶ at the other end of the ice.

As someone who thought this would be a farce, it was a classic.

That’s pretty cool.

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I also wanted to empty the notebook of my thoughts, random musings that have been rattling around in my head while watching these games that I simply haven’t written yet onto (digital) paper.

• Dylan Larkin was really good. This isn’t surprising to me, I’m based in Detroit and watch him play regularly, but to see him play meaningful games, for the first time since he was a rookie in the NHL playoffs back in 2016, was special. Larkin also went from playing a limited role to seizing the moment. I’m not sure if the Red Wings will be able to hold onto the playoff spot this spring or not, but this was at least a taste of how Larkin can elevate his game in the biggest moments.

• Jake Guentzel’s performance in his first Team USA showing. Before the tournament started I did a story for USA Hockey’s website⁷ on Guentzel and the long path playing for Team USA. He was really, really good in this tournament. As a guy that I kind of underrated before, his play with Tampa this season and with Team USA was a big statement to me.

• Jaccob Slavin is criminally underrated and a tournament like this is a good chance to remind us how good he is on a nightly basis. What he did in the championship game is pretty typical of what happens in Raleigh.

• Lucas Raymond is going to be one of the biggest stars at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Sweden losing and not having something to play for in Game 3 hurt Raymond’s overall impact, but as someone who watches him regularly and saw deliver in this best-on-best tournament, he’s going to be one of the most impactful players at the Olympics next year.

• Thomas Harley and Jake Sanderson stepping up after getting the calls as injury replacements was pretty impressive, Harley notably leaving his Mexican vacation with Wyatt Johnston to join Team USA when Cale Makar was sick for the first USA-Canada game in Montreal.

• Finland was robbed. I can’t help but wonder how this tournament looks with a Finnish team that isn’t rocked by injuries, one where Miro Heiskanen is able to play at full strength. Am I picking them to be in the final? Probably not, but I’m also not expecting them to lose 6-1 to the Americans like they did in Game 1.

Ok, with that I’m back to vacation mode for about 48 more hours, closing the computer and all of that.

Thanks for reading, enjoy the games this weekend, and we will have much, much more here at this site starting next week as I’m able to attack the final four months of this NHL season re-charged myself.

1. It has been a great trip, by the way. Done of a ton of hiking, watched an active volcano smoldering, seen a handful of sea turtles, whales, and some manta rays up close. Later tonight, it’s only early afternoon here, we are going to head up to Mauna Kea to look at the stars.

2. Put that clip in the Hockey Hall of Fame, right?

3. And even that was a fun, but bastardized version of international hockey with Team North America and Team Europe.

4. Sports have always been political. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying to themselves. Some of the most well-known hockey stories are because of their political undertones — the 1976 Canada Cup and the 1980 Olympics are remembered because of the non-hockey history of the USSR vs. North America.

5. I’m still struggling to see how Gary Bettman’s claim of eight teams or more will work when there aren’t eight countries on this planet able to field a roster of 23 NHLers and Bettman claims this will be an NHL tournament.

6. Binnington in Boston, right?

7. One of many freelance gigs I have, if you are a publication that wants to occasionally hire this writer to do some feature work, you can email me at Sean.c.shapiro@gmail.com