Blues captain, while appreciative of talent that will be represented with USA, Canada, Finland, Sweden, feels elite players will be missing from other nations, including Pastrnak's Czechia
David Pastrnak's Instagram photo said it all in the moment.
The Boston Bruins star was fresh off a win for his home country, Czechia, playing in its home soil at the 2024 IIHF World Championship, holding the championship trophy with the caption 'Maybe Four Nation invite now ?'
Sounds like someone is sending a message to the NHL that he, and perhaps some of his fellow country members, isn't happy to be left out of the competition that will take place in 2025 in the 4 Nations Face-Off Tournament.
It will include four of the top countries in the world in regards to hockey talent in USA, Canada, Finland and Sweden.
Pastrnak, one of the top players in the NHL, will not be part of that tournament since Czechia was not included in the initial quartet. There's also Russia and there are other countries that have superstar-type players that will be omitted.
Count St. Louis Blues captain Brayden Schenn, a Canadian, in Pastrnak's corner.
While talking about making a case for Jordan Binnington to represent Canada in that tournament, along with the 2026 Turin Winter Olympics, Schenn spoke positively about the type of talent that will be represented but also there will be plenty of omissions, which is why he is mixed on the format.
"Yes and no. You're leaving out a lot of good players," Schenn told The Hockey News. "It's great to put those four teams together and have some fun and good for viewership, but when you're leaving out the Draisaitls, the Kucherovs, Pastrnaks, Panarin and guys like that, that's some elite competition by guys that put up a lot of points that want to be part of those competitions as well."
So ... just in that perspective, the players Schenn mentioned, Nikita Kucherov (Tampa Bay Lightning; Russia) led the NHL this past season with 144 points, Artemi Panarin (New York Rangers; Russia) was fourth with 120, Pastrnak was fifth with 110 and Leon Draisaitl (Edmonton Oilers; Germany) was seventh with 106.
That alone is 480 points that will not be present at that showcase. And from those players' case, that's a lot of talent that will be missed.
Is it a perfect scenario? No. But it's not a situation where, as in Schenn's case, they're saying it's a bad situation. They actually are all looking forward to what's to come. The point is leaving this amount of talent out is missing out on the potential of making something great, greater.
