3 Keys: Canada vs. Sweden, 4 Nations Face-Off

CANADA vs. SWEDEN

4 Nations Face-Off, Bell Centre, Montreal

8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS

MONTREAL -- The 4 Nations Face-Off gets underway when Canada plays Sweden on Wednesday.

The game represents the start of the first best-on-best tournament featuring NHL players since the World Cup of Hockey 2016.

"Definitely feel a lot of pressure," Canada forward Nathan MacKinnon said. "I definitely like feeling pressure. It's an important event. We all take representing Canada very seriously. We know we have a ton of support and pressure. I think it's a good thing. It means you're doing something important."

Goalie Jordan Binnington will start for Canada, getting the nod from coach Jon Cooper ahead of Adin Hill, who will be the backup, and Sam Montembeault.

"It's special," Binnington said. "It's real. It's time. It's been fun these first few couple days. We're excited to get started."

For Sweden, coach Sam Hallam announced Filip Gustavsson will start ahead of Linus Ullmark and Samuel Ersson.

"It's a big honor," Gustavsson said. "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."

Canada and Sweden have not played in an NHL international tournament (not Olympics or IIHF World Championship) since the semifinals of the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, when Theo Fleury scored 19:47 into the second overtime to send Canada to the final with a 3-2 victory.

Canada is 8-1-0 against Sweden in NHL international tournaments dating to the 1976 Canada Cup.

"I've been looking forward to this day and it's finally here," Sweden forward Mika Zibanejad said. "I think there's more jitters going on right now, a lot of excitement. At least for me, if I'm not a little bit nervous I don't think it means a whole lot. I think everyone is nervous, everyone is excited and everyone is ready to go."

Here are three keys to the game:

1. Binnington's chance

Canada's goaltending was one of the biggest storylines coming into the tournament, with the two questions being who will start and will whoever it is be good enough?

The storyline won't go away unless Binnington has a big performance against Sweden.

Binnington has a pedigree in big games. He won the Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues when he made 32 saves for a 4-1 victory against the Boston Bruins on the road in Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final. He played eight games at the 2024 IIHF World Championship, going 6-2 with a 2.81 goals-against average and .885 save percentage for fourth-place Canada.

Earlier this season, he started a 6-2 win for the Blues against the Chicago Blackhawks in the Discover NHL Winter Classic at Wrigley Field on Dec. 31 and made 28 saves.

"He's a confident kid and he wants to be in that spot," Cooper said. "Jordan's been our guy. That kid's got fire in the belly. He's a competitor and we're really confident in him."

2. Chemistry is king

Cooper and Hallam have put together lines and defense pairs to fit their systems, but now they're hoping they work. They will have to give it time to gel, but time is limited in a short tournament. So if the coaches don't see what they want to see from their lines in the first period, it's possible there could be changes before the start of the second.

"I hope we got it right and that's it and we don't have to change, but I anticipate that probably won't be the case," Cooper said. "Even your own NHL teams sometimes you change lines just because the momentum in the game needs to be swung or you feel in your gut is telling you to do this.

"In a short tournament you also have to give them some leash. You can't cut them off at the knees two shifts in, so there's going to be some balance here to see how the game is going."

3. Start fast, play fast

Both teams said they expect the game to be fast right from the drop of the puck for fear of what will happen if they try to wade their way into the tournament.

"I don't think there is any waiting around," Zibanejad said. "I don't think we have time for it. I don't think they have time for it. I'm expecting a high tempo from the start."

Cooper said the past few days have felt like it did in the bubble during the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs, when players were mingling with each other off the ice because they all were staying in the same hotels.

But like what happened there, he expects the competition here to ramp up right away.

"I fully expect it to be as competitive as any international tournament," Cooper said. "The difference is we're all together right now. Teams are sharing hotels, so you're running into different situations like that.

"It's exactly how the bubble was. Everybody was together. Everybody was having fun and conversing, but when those games started it was a war. The only thing that was crazy was there was no fans and after one period you never noticed it anyway because of how competitive it was on the ice. I think this will be the same way."

Canada 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

Adin Hill

Scratched: Sam Bennett, Travis Sanheim, Sam Montembeault

Injured: None

Sweden projected lineup

William Nylander -- Mika Zibanejad -- Rickard Rakell

Filip Forsberg -- Elias Pettersson -- Adrian Kempe

Jesper Bratt -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Lucas Raymond

Gustav Nyquist -- Elias Lindholm -- Viktor Arvidsson

Victor Hedman -- Jonas Brodin

Mattias Ekholm -- Erik Karlsson

Rasmus Dahlin -- Gustav Forsling

Filip Gustavsson

Linus Ullmark

Scratched: Leo Carlsson, Rasmus Andersson, Samuel Ersson

Injured: None

Status report

Canada held an optional morning skate Wednesday. Sweden held a full team skate.