Team Canada goaltenders Adin Hill and Jordan Binnington prepare for the team photo prior to 4 Nations Face-Off hockey practice in Montreal, on Feb. 11.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
When Canada takes the ice in Montreal Wednesday night to begin its 4 Nations Face-Off campaign against Sweden, much of the focus will understandably be on the arsenal of all-world offensive talent at its disposal.
From Connor McDavid to Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon to Sam Reinhart, it’s a veritable who’s who of NHL superstars; a list as long as it is distinguished.
At the other end of the ice, it’s a different story. Less long and arguably less distinguished, the trio of Canadian netminders is firmly in the crosshairs, with St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington first into the line of fire after drawing the starting assignment Wednesday night.
“There’s not much to be said, right?” Binnington told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s about action, and let that do the talking. I’m excited.”
Unlike so many other so-called best-on-best tournaments in years past, from the World Cup of Hockey to NHL-endorsed Olympics, it may well be a case of picking your poison for Canada.
Certainly, from the outside looking in, the 50-odd-year period of Ken Dryden, Grant Fuhr, Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo – Hall of Famers all – providing an ever-reliable foundation for Canada’s international ambitions appears to be over.
Canada’s current trio of netminders – Binnington, Montreal’s Samuel Montembeault, and Vegas goalie Adin Hill – aren’t exactly in the running for the Vezina Trophy this season. Far from it.
The three have an average save percentage of .898 this season through their 112 combined starts, with Golden Knights starter Hill leading the way with a .900 mark, good for 30th in the NHL.
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And though both Hill and Binnington have led their teams to Stanley Cups – and Montembeault backstopped Canada to world-championship gold two years ago – one can’t help but think that Canadian head coach Jon Cooper has turned an envious glance toward the crease cache south of the border at least once or twice.
For the United States, Winnipeg Jets netminder Connor Hellebuyck – the reigning Vezina Trophy winner leads the NHL in save percentage (.925), goals-against average (2.06), wins (34) and shutouts (six) – is the likely candidate to start, with Dallas’s Jake Oettinger and Boston’s Jeremy Swayman backing up.
But Carey Price, who was in the Canadian net for the 2016 World Cup win as well as for Canada’s last Olympic men’s hockey gold two years before that, sees no cause for immediate concern regarding Canada’s future between the pipes.
“There’s always talent out there,” he said. “I don’t doubt that we’re going to continue producing goalies in this country. There’s too many kids playing the game. They’re going to be found. My dad always told me when I was a kid: ‘If you’re good, somebody will find you.’ ”
As the former Hart Trophy winner as the NHL’s most valuable player explains, the reality is that the rest of the world is simply getting better. Case in point can be found at the 4 Nations, with Sweden boasting a Vezina Trophy winner of its own in Ottawa’s Linus Ullmark. And if Russia wasn’t currently on international hockey’s persona non grata list for the continuing war with Ukraine, it could have had three former Vezina winners at its tournament disposal in the shape of Sergei Bobrovsky, Igor Shesterkin and Andrei Vasilevskiy.
“The rest of the world is catching up,” Price said. “There’s more players everywhere, the talent pool is so much deeper than ever, and in the last 20 years, there’s only what, a handful of more [goaltending] spots in the NHL [thanks to expansion].
“So I think it’s not just the fact that Canada isn’t producing as many good goalies. I think it’s just the fact that more countries in the world are producing many more good goalies.”
To be fair, it’s not as if Canada didn’t have other options. While general manager Don Sweeney chose to pick three who have varying degrees of championships on their résumés, having all pulled on the Maple Leaf at some point in their careers, he could have gone in a different direction. For instance, Washington’s Logan Thompson, Colorado’s Darcy Kuemper and Mackenzie Blackwood of the Los Angeles Kings are all eligible to play for Canada and currently sitting in the NHL’s top five in save percentage.
But they’ll be sitting at home – or wherever they’ve chosen to vacation while the NHL breaks for the 4 Nations – when the tournament starts.
Another who will be sitting and watching as an interested observer is Marc-André Fleury, the three-time Stanley Cup champion and the winner of 572 games, second in NHL history behind Brodeur’s 691.
Fleury was part of the 2010 Olympic team that won gold in Vancouver. Though he didn’t see any game action there – “I can’t say my job was too stressful,” he said with a laugh – he can attest to the pressure that Canada’s netminders always feel when representing their country.
And while he understands that the trio that will represent Canada in the 4 Nations are under the microscope, his sense is that they will do just fine.
“It’s always pressure as a goalie, it doesn’t matter where you play, but, yeah, they’ll be fine,” he said. “Everybody’s already talking, I don’t know, putting them down already, and I don’t like that. I think they’re all three good goalies and they’ll be fine.”
With a report from Simon Houpt