U.S. needs right combination of talent, competitiveness, drive at 4 Nations Face-Off

The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2024-25 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher.

In this edition, Don Granato, a former assistant with the St. Louis Blues, Chicago Blackhawks and Buffalo Sabres, and head coach of the Sabres, writes about the United States roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off.

The 4 Nations Face-Off will be in Montreal and Boston from Feb. 12-20 and the full rosters for Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States will be announced Wednesday.

If I'm putting the United States roster together, I'm focusing on competitiveness. There's a ton of skill in the United States, but if I'm standing behind the bench, I'd want to be standing with the most competitive bunch of guys possible.

There are varying degrees of competitiveness. I'd want the guys with the highest self-expectation, guys that can immerse in the moment and not relent -- not just guys that hate to lose, but guys that carry with them a swagger to win no matter who is lined up across from them. I want guys who want the puck on their stick in a tie game as the clock winds down. That's my criteria.

The six guys who already have been named to the roster fit that description. I can attest to that, because I coached five of them at USA Hockey's National Team Development Program: Jack Eichel, Quinn Hughes, Charlie McAvoy, Auston Matthews and Matthew Tkachuk. I was around the sixth, because Adam Fox was at the program with the other age group at the time.

At our last event before the 2015 IIHF U18 World Championship, I told the assistants, "We are going to be relying on McAvoy heavily at the World Championships, so I am going to give it to him for the next seven days." If he missed a pass, didn't keep a puck in, didn't get a puck out, whatever, I'd yell at him and have one of the assistants follow up by bringing a laptop into the locker room and show him, "Hey, Coach wants you to see this, because this is what he was yelling at you for."

One time, one of the coaches came back in the coaches room, and we were all kind of laughing, because we knew McAvoy could handle it. I wouldn't go after a guy that couldn't handle it. I said to the coach, "How was he?" The coach said, "He was pretty funny. He just shook his head and said, 'Man, I have never been yelled at so much in my life.'" Obviously, he rose to the occasion, and he was elite for us.

In the preliminary round, we led Slovakia 2-0 in the first period. We were getting comfortable just creating chances, because we had so much possession. Matthews, Tkachuk and Jack Roslovic got a 3-on-0 and pretty much highlight-reeled their way into the corner of the rink without getting a good scoring chance.

When they came back to the bench, I gave it to the three of them pretty good. I told them, "It isn't a skill session today. It's actually about winning." I sat them one shift, and while they were sitting, I walked to one of the assistants. He was chuckling at how I gave it to them. I said, "What's the chance they go out there and score their next shift?" He said, "That would be about 100 percent." I said, "My thought exactly."

And sure enough, they went out and scored -- Roslovic from Matthews and Tkachuk. The game broke open then, and we ran away with it 10-0. We went on to win gold, but it was a testament to how competitive those guys are. One shift is all it took. I skipped them one shift, and they elevated to where we needed them.

That's the type of people you want, combined with the talent. Again, we know we have depth of talent in the United States I think to get it right is to get our most competitive, most driven and determined players in these games. Looking back to the U.S. team that won the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, I think of how important competitive people are, and to me, Dylan Larkin, Matthew Tkachuk, Brady Tkachuk, those guys really, really stand out to me in that category.

What's exciting about an event like this is you have groups of players coming together in a really short time, and you have to get people on the same page. Familiarity is really important, because you don't have time to work with the players. Take Jaccob Slavin, a defenseman who's in a more man-on-man system with the Carolina Hurricanes, jumping into a different system. With his experience, he can probably do that no problem. A younger guy might not be able to. Those things come into play.

Psyche is so important. You want to get the psyche right, and I love the coaching selections for the United States and Canada. Mike Sullivan is coaching with the United States and Jon Cooper with Canada. When Sullivan won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016 and 2017, and Cooper with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2020 and 2021, their teams had swagger. I think these coaches are going to really let the talent be the talent. They'll provide enough simple structure for their teams, but I don't see either coach attempting to win 1-0 or 2-1, and even if these type of scores happen, I believe we're going to see up-and-down and back-and-forth style for these games. These two coaches appreciate thoroughbreds, and I believe their focus will be to provide room for these horses to run.

Where will the matchup advantage lie, if there is one? Is it speed? Is it hockey sense? Is it in the first-line matchup or the third line? This is why you want competitive people that don't fear failure, that just go.

A big push for USA Hockey, and specifically at the National Team Development Program, has been to elevate the internal expectation of the U.S. player, and it's been a home run. I've watched it. I've lived it. Our young players put on that U.S. jersey, and they don't take a back seat to anybody at puck drop, and I can't say this was always the case when we were kids, personally. That's the big success, I think. I believe our players expect they are better than the guys across the ice from them.