International Hockey Roundtable
Finns worried about having enough NHL d-men for 4 Nations Face-Off
© Jerome Miron-Imagn Images - Finns worried about having enough NHL d-men for 4 Nations Face-OffAntti Pennanen, the new head coach of the Finnish national team, faces several challenges in his new position. His predecessor, Jukka Jalonen, had considerable recent success, guiding Finland to two IIHF World Championship titles and one Olympic gold in the past five years.
Next February, he also has the 4 Nations Face-Off – a tournament run by the NHL and held in Boston and Montreal which will feature teams representing Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland. He and his staff don’t have much time to assemble a roster, either.
“At the Olympics, the team is clearly assembled later, or at least announced. This is a bit of a new situation,” Pennanen said in a recent interview with Finnish media outlet MTV. “Well, it is what it is and that’s probably because the NHL has defined schedules from a communication and marketing point of view.”
Under Jalonen, Finland employed a mix of NHL and European-based talent that worked as a cohesive unit in a system, resulting in success. But the Finns won’t be able to do that at the 4 Nations Face-off.
According to the press release where the tournament was announced, “Players must be under an NHL contract for the 2024-25 season and on an NHL roster as of Dec. 2, 2024.”
“All players must be NHL players,” Pennanen acknowledged.
Finland definitely does not lack high-end NHL talent, as shown by its initial six nominees: Aleksander Barkov, Mikko Rantanen, Sebastian Aho, Miro Heiskanen, Esa Lindell and Juuse Saros. And in terms of overall numbers, the Finns should be in good shape for forwards and goaltenders.
But even with Heiskanen and Lindell, their blueline numbers are a little thin. In the 2023-24 season, 11 Finnish defensemen played in the NHL, but only eight played more than 31 games. One of those, Jani Hakanpää of the Toronto Maple Leafs, missed the end of last season and the playoffs with a knee problem. The Philadelphia Flyers’ Rasmus Ristolainen, who played 31, had off-season surgery to repair a ruptured triceps tendon.
“We have to produce more future top defensemen for the NHL because the number is quite small now. That fact can already be seen in the 4 Nations,” said Penneman.
“We have thought about naming seven defensemen for the tournament, but that’s not terribly injury-resistant.”
In contrast with the 4 Nations Face-Off, Pennanen’s first event as Finnish national team coach will have no NHLers present but he will be under the spotlight at the Karjala Cup – the first leg of the Euro Hockey Tour – which will be played in Helsinki November 7 to 10.
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