MONTREAL — Where most see a home-ice advantage — a loaded Canadian squad opening the long-delayed quest for best-on-best in front of a rabid crowd — Sweden’s starting goalie sees a path to upset.
“It’s perfect for us,” Filip Gustavsson said, smiling, following Wednesday’s morning skate.
“Everyone’s gonna cheer for them, and they’re gonna have the most pressure. We’re gonna come out there and play a little more free and loose, hopefully. And they’re the one that has to keep the crowd happy.”
When it comes to the crease, Canada is banking on championship experience over recent regular-season success.
Sweden is going the other way.
-
-
4 Nations Face-Off on Sportsnet
The inaugural edition of the 4 Nations Face-Off is here with the top players from Canada, Sweden, Finland and the United States going head-to-head in the highly anticipated best-on-best event. Watch all the games on Sportsnet, starting with Canada vs. Sweden on Feb. 12 at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT.
The 26-year-old Gustavsson has a sparkling 2.63 goals-against average and a .915 save percentage this season with the Minnesota Wild (not to mention a beautiful goalie goal), but only five games of playoff experience.
“It’s a big honour. You compete to play for the national team and then you have a 4 Nations against the best players, and you get a chance to be on the team. I’m just going to enjoy it and do the best I can,” Gustavsson said.
“If you look at the two teams, I think our talent is as good as theirs, and we’re gonna match up with them pretty good. So, I think it’s gonna be a fair game.”
Coach Sam Hallam was encouraged by Gustavsson’s 6-1 bronze-medal showing at the 2024 world championship, his reliability for the Wild, and his growing confidence.
That earned “Gus the Bus” (as teammate Erik Karlsson affectionately calls him) the nod over Ottawa’s Linus Ullmark, who has a Vezina on the shelf but has battled injury this season.
“We’re really happy the way he looked all year … playing regularly, being in a good place, feeling really good about his game,” said Hallam, who broke the news to Ullmark on Tuesday.
Hallam hasn’t ruled out turning to Ullmark Saturday or Monday; the coach wants to give his backup a few more days to work on his game.
Hallam’s message to the scratches: “We can have one guy slip in the shower now, and we have to change it up. So, just be ready.”
Karlsson perks up discussing “Gus,” whose net he helped defend at the worlds, too.
“Especially when comes to games like this, he’s a very relaxed guy and fun guy,” Karlsson said. “And he’s a gamer.”
To that point, Gustavsson — happy to chat on a game day — is already planning to shout instructions to the skaters in their native tongue.
“I would say it’s an advantage for us if we would stick to Swedish,” Gustavsson said. “Then the other teams won’t know what we’re saying if we want to do quick ups, or where we want to go for faceoffs.
“Kind of like a code word.”
Swedish structure overhaul
Take one look up and down Team Sweden’s lineup and find a hole, we dare you.
It used to be you couldn’t find them on the ice, with the structure and approach to international play designed to close them at all costs without focusing on much else.
As Hallam said ahead of Wednesday’s tournament-opening game against Canada, “Traditionally, it’s been sitting back.”
Not anymore. Not with William Nylander, Filip Forsberg, Elias Petersson, Lucas Raymond, Erik Karlsson and Rasmus Dahlin playing for the modern Tre Kronor.
These guys aren’t about to bust out the 2-2-1 Torpedo trap that killed Swedish hockey ingenuity through the 1990s.
After Peter Forsberg and Marcus Naslund were taken in the first round of 1991 NHL Draft, Sweden’s national hockey mandate placed emphasis on team defence and nothing else, and that generated a dearth of elite talent emerging from the country before the Sedin twins arrived in 1999.
Now?
Well, the Swedes are as focused on playing it as tight as any the other nations competing here, but it’s not as singular a focus as it might have been 15, 20 years ago.
“I think you look at the players that we have, it’s a fast, puck-moving, aggressive style of play, and we’re up to date with everyone else,” said Filip Forsberg, after Sweden’s high-flying morning skate. “I see the new generation of players are coming — it’s faster, more aggressive and stuff like that, and I think that’s what we want to do.”
Aggressive. That’s the word Forsberg, Victor Hedman, Viktor Arvidsson and Mika Zibanejad all used to describe what we should expect to see from their team against Canada.
Hallam is clearly using it in his messaging to the group.
“I hope our game doesn’t show tonight that we’re sitting back,” the coach said. “I hope we get our feet going and play pretty aggressive out there.”
Arvidsson guaranteed that’s the intention.
“We like to hold the puck, and we have a lot of players to do that,” the 31-year-old said.
“That’s how we’re going to approach it. For this generation, it’s for sure been different. You don’t see a lot of grit players with skill, it’s more pure skill. The guys who can also play the competitive and heavy game are here. They can do it all. It’s a change. It’s not as much straight lines anymore, it’s more moving across and trying to find open pockets.”
That’s definitely different than the Swedish style we grew accustomed to — the one that sewed pockets closed and shut games down.
Canadian identity unchanged
The systems vary from coach to coach, said Brad Marchand, but what defines Canada’s brand of hockey hasn’t changed since well before he began participating in best-on-best tournaments for the country.
The 36-year-old pointed to the Canadian “compete level.”
“There’s no quit in anybody’s game,” Marchand said.
For captain Sidney Crosby, who’s been alongside Marchand for much of his international experience, it’s the togetherness of the Canadian team that drives its success.
“I just think it’s team. It’s playing together as a group,” Crosby said. “Talking about that structure a little bit, it’s got to get better with every period. … I think it’s just playing as a group, from the goalie out. Whether it’s offensively or defensively, doing all the little things that add up to winning.
“When I think of Team Canada and different teams over the years, I think of that ability to play as a group.”
OK, it all sounds a bit bland.
But the hardnosed, sacrifice-personal-success-for-team-success mentality has been baked into the Canadian national hockey identity since the 1972 Summit Series.
There have been system advents since then, no doubt. Thinking back to the 2002 edition of Team Canada that broke a 50-year-gold medal drought at the Olympics, assistant coach and master tactician Ken Hitchcock drilled home the need to play with all five guys in the picture in all three zones, and that style of play was at the foundation of gold-medal wins for Canada at the 2010 and 2014 Games, and the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
Has Canada coach Jon Cooper brought something different to the table? A couple of tweaks perhaps.
But given how short this event is, and how little ramp up there is to it, he’s just going to let the Canadians lean into their identity.
“We’re sitting here and talking as coaches that we’re having a two-week training camp put into two days,” the coach said. “I think simple is better.
“In the end, the message is, you’re hockey players, you’re the best in the world. We will put you in situations to succeed and where you’ll have your outs. But, in the end, you go with your gut and play with your instinct, and we’ll adapt out of that. Go be yourself and if something needs to be tweaked, we’ll tweak it.”
Marchand calls for no boos
The Americans open their tournament Thursday versus Finland, with the marquee U.S.-Canada showdown set for Saturday night.
Considering recent incidents of “The Star-Spangled Banner” being booed before games in Ottawa (NHL) and Toronto (NBA) — a vociferous response to President Donald Trump’s threat to raise tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports — a subplot looms.
Will the U.S. anthem be accompanied by boos in Montreal?
Marchand — a frequent target of individual boos in this building — has strong feelings on the topic.
“For me, anthems are to pay respect for the veterans that gave their lives so that we have freedom. So, I think that people should respect anthems at all times,” Marchand said.
“Otherwise, you’re just disrespecting millions and millions and millions of people that literally gave up everything so that we could have our freedom. I don’t think that’s appropriate, but everyone’s free to do their own thing.”
One shot
Arvidsson, when asked who he’d trust most to deliver the tying goal for Sweden if they need it with time running out: “I’ll pick Nylander, he’s been really hot this year.”
Forsberg’s answer?
“Big Willy Styles,” he said of the 33-goal man for the Maple Leafs.
Zibanejad just said, “The guy sitting next to me,” and pointed to Nylander’s nameplate.
Running through this same exercise with Crosby and Marchand gave us a glimpse of what might be the difference between these two incredibly talented hockey nations.
“You could pick a name out of a hat,” said Marchand.
“That’s the great thing: you don’t need to designate one guy,” said Crosby, who scored the golden goal at the 2010 Vancouver Games. “Obviously, there’s a lot of guys that want the puck on their stick in that situation, so that’s what you want. You want as many guys as possible that want that puck, that want to be in that situation, and we’ve got a bunch of them.”
One-Timers: Crosby is battling an upper-body injury and hasn’t played in eight days. The captain assures he’s in a good spot mentally and physically for puck drop. “I don’t have a lot of apprehensions,” he said. … Canada may have home ice, but Team Sweden has taken over the cushy Montreal Canadiens dressing room. … The NHL and its PA will announce details on the 2028 World Cup before puck drop.
Canada’s projected lineup
Sam Reinhart – Connor McDavid – Mitch Marner
Sidney Crosby – Nathan MacKinnon – Mark Stone
Brad Marchand – Brayden Point – Seth Jarvis
Brandon Hagel – Anthony Cirelli – Travis Konecny
Devon Toews – Cale Makar
Shea Theodore – Drew Doughty
Josh Morrissey – Colton Parayko
Jordan Binnington starts
Adin Hill
Extras: Sam Bennett, Travis Sanheim, Samuel Montembeault
Sweden’s projected lineup
Forsberg – Pettersson – Kempe
Rakell – Zibanejad – Nylander
Bratt – Eriksson-Ek – Raymond
Arvidsson – Lindholm – Nyquist
Carlsson
Hedman – Brodin
Ekholm – Karlsson
Forsling – Dahlin
Gustavsson starts
Ullmark
Extras: Carlsson, Andersson, Ersson
