PHILADELPHIA -- Canada will name its roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off on Dec. 4, but the bulk of the work is close to completed, according to Doug Armstrong.
"Probably not as many as people think," Armstrong, the St. Louis Blues general manager who is leading Canada's management group for the tournament, said Wednesday when asked how many spots are still up for debate.
The tournament, with rosters made up exclusively of NHL players, takes place in Montreal and Boston from Feb. 12-20, with Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland competing. Each roster will feature 23 players (13 forwards, seven defensemen, three goalies), with six players already named. Forwards Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins), Nathan MacKinnon (Colorado Avalanche), Connor McDavid (Edmonton Oilers), Brayden Point (Tampa Bay Lightning) and Brad Marchand (Boston Bruins), and defenseman Cale Makar (Avalanche) were selected for Canada.
At the urging of Canada GM Don Sweeney (Bruins), Armstrong and the rest of the management group, including assistant GMs Jim Nill (Dallas Stars) and Julien BriseBois (Lightning) and director of player personnel Kyle Dubas (Penguins), along with coach Jon Cooper (Lightning) and his staff, periodically have been filing mock rosters.
Armstrong, who was in Philadelphia on Wednesday to watch the game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Carolina Hurricanes, said several of the same names have appeared continually on all their previous roster submissions.
"When you have the same names keep popping up, I'm sure they'll pop up a week from now if they've popped up as many times as before," Armstrong said. "We're making sure we're getting out and seeing games these last couple of weeks. We want to certainly get with the coaches and make sure that they share the same belief on that type of player. My experience has taught me we don't want to jam a square peg into a round hole. The coach has to see the same value in the entire roster as we see and that's what Donnie and the group are working on now."
There has been much public speculation about which goalies Canada could choose, but Armstrong said there hasn't been much more time spent discussing those players than those at any other position.
"Canada hasn't had decisions for a number of years, whether you go back to Patrick (Roy), and you had (Ed) Belfour, you've had (Martin) Brodeur, (Roberto) Luongo and Carey Price," he said. "There was maybe two competitions for a No. 1 job with two of maybe the top four or five in the world. It's a little bit different right now."
There are four Canada-born goalies to play at least 10 games with a save percentage better than .900: Cam Talbot of the Detroit Red Wings (.920), Mackenzie Blackwood of the San Jose Sharks (.910), Sam Montembeault of the Montreal Canadiens (.906) and Darcy Kuemper of the Los Angeles Kings (.903), and the only ones to rank in the top 15 in goals-against average among all goalies who have played 10 or more games are Kuemper (13th, 2.65) and Talbot (14th, 2.67). Other options include Adin Hill of Vegas Golden Knights, Jordan Binnington of the Blues, Logan Thompson of the Washington Capitals, and Stuart Skinner of the Oilers.
United States-born Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets leads NHL goalies with 13 wins, and among goalies to play at least 10 games, U.S.-born Anthony Stolarz of the Toronto Maple Leafs leads with a .927 save percentage and Sweden-born Filip Gustavsson of the Minnesota Wild leads with a 2.07 GAA.
"Obviously the U.S. has a large number of [goalies] at the top of their game," Armstrong said. "We're going to find three good goalies that can help us win."
There's still time for Canada to lock that down, as well as the remainder of the roster.
"There's some players that started on the inside that have worked their way out," Armstrong said. "They're not out, but have brought other players into the equation, and players that weren't in the equation are now in the equation. That's why you want to go and see as many games as possible.
"For Canada, it's a great opportunity to look at so many great players that, as you're doing your day job, you don't look at because they're never available. So it's a lot of fun doing it. And there's lots of great opportunity for players, and there's going to be some hard decisions."
