Take Town: Appreciating some guys

My hope is that by the time the Four Nations tournament rolls around, I will feel more enthused about it.

In the past, I have said that a lot of international tournaments, like the World Juniors or the Olympics, have far too many non-competitive games with foregone conclusions. “Oh wow, another 10–1 Canada win over Latvia.” We weren’t learning anything, and we were reminded on a quarter-hourly basis that, actually, goal difference matters—that’s why Zaiyne McConnor is chasing his seventh point in the third period against a goalie whose career-best year will be a league-average season in the Finnish second division.

But even this Four Nations thing feels like that. It’s not that Sweden and Finland won’t be highly competitive, but the format is just three games over, like, a week, and then whoever has the best record plays for the championship. There are only 37 Finnish skaters in the NHL this season and fewer than 70 Swedes. Not exactly the deepest pools to be swimming in, unfortunately.

They’re going to call this “best on best,” but some of the best players alive just don’t get to participate. Sorry, Leon! Tough bounce, Kirill! Maybe next year, Martin! At least they’ll all get a nice, long international break and hit the beach for a week and a half. Maybe they prefer it that way.

But maybe my cynicism here is just because they’re announcing rosters on Dec. 4, and the first game of the tournament isn’t until mid-February. It’s really weird to do everything so far out, isn’t it? I’m sure my excitement will grow as we get closer, but for now, I’m seeing these roster announcements, and the idea of thinking of anyone as a “snub” or a “flub” seems insane.

That said, is it a better thing to do at that point in the season than another All-Star Weekend? I guess it probably is.

Let's go:

A damn shame

Sucks to see Tyler Seguin get shut down for the regular season at the very least. A timeline of four to six months means he's probably coming back for the playoffs if he comes back at all. And the fact that it's another hip problem perhaps does not portend good things for his ability to play at a high level when he returns. It took Patrick Kane a while to get back to 100 percent, and Nicklas Backstrom's career got torpedoed by this problem.

Seguin was having an awesome year to start out, and the fact that he was doing it with such a nagging injury is outright impressive. I thought he'd be on the Canada roster for Four Nations, but now obviously it's not gonna happen. He's in a generation of players that just didn't get much international opportunity, and in 2014 his career wasn't necessarily in a place where he was going to get a ton of consideration. That was actually his real breakout season, and if it hadn't been for the previous year's lockout, he might have had enough runway. How she goes sometimes.

That said, this allows Dallas to do the hated Tampa/Vegas/Chicago thing where they get a long-injured player back in the postseason after acquiring his replacement using LTIR… if he can come back at all.

Not really sure how that would work because so few teams with reasonable Seguin replacements are in a position to give up such a player. I know our own Cam Robinson pointed a spotlight at Evgeni Malkin for this kind of thing and that would be cool for a few reasons (not the least of which is that the Penguins should be trying to push every big contract on their books out to sea ASAP). But I kinda don't see it. Malkin seemingly doesn't want to play for any team that's not the Penguins, and I get it. He's a first-ballot Hall of Famer with three Cups, two Art Rosses, and an MVP. Nothing to chase. Just play out the string in the place he's called home for almost 20 years. Simple. Who cares if they suck? It's only like 15 percent his fault.

The only other guy I can really think of who's a pending UFA on a team that isn't likely to make the playoffs and would probably welcome the trade opportunity is Brock Nelson. And in terms of name recognition, star power, just vibes, etc., there's a huge downgrade from Malkin to Nelson, even if their on-ice value at this point (let alone the financials) is pretty close to even, I'd think. If I'm the Stars, Nelson would be a player I'd be excited to acquire, but the wow factor just isn't there. Maybe it's not about that, and it probably shouldn't be.

But the search is certainly on. It'll be fascinating to see what they dig up.

A word of appreciation

I mentioned Kirill Kaprizov and Martin Nečas earlier. I just want to give those guys a tip of the hat for having such cool and fun years. They ended Tuesday's games tied with Nathan MacKinnon for the league lead in points and seriously, who cares if a former MVP leads the league in points? But two guys who have never done that doing it is really cool. Sorry!

Did you know Kaprizov hasn't gotten to 100 points since 2021-22? And the career high in points for Necas is just 71. Even if they slow down, they're likely to cruise past those milestones, and I like that.

And along the same lines as MacKinnon, while it is funny to just see Connor McDavid casually put up 120-plus points a season, a little fresh blood never hurt anyone. Of course, McDavid is "only" sixth in points per game right now so I'm sure he's gonna run these guys down like a cheetah going after an adolescent springbok, but it's nice to imagine a different world sometimes.

Does this feel weird to anyone else?

I was thinking about active guys who are surefire Hall of Famers earlier and I was specifically wondering how many defensemen you'd put in that group. Erik Karlsson, surely. He has three Norrises and there just aren't many guys ever with more.

Drew Doughty, yup. Victor Hedman, of course.

But after that, it feels a little dicey, doesn't it? Your Roman Josi, Kris Letang, Alex Pietrangelo-style candidates are out there but perhaps not slam dunks. Is Brent Burns in that group? Maybe I'm missing another guy or two but that would have to be it, and a lot of them would feel like 50/50 cases, right?

The reason I was thinking about all this is because right now I'd have Quinn Hughes or Cale Makar right up there for winning the Norris so far this year and for either to have two at their age would feel major. Both are those "on the right track and it would take a disaster to miss" guys, but a second Norris for either would cement them. It would certainly make them more likely than Letang or Pietrangelo, I think.

And that's pretty crazy to consider, given the reputations those guys built over more than a decade in the league.