The 4 Nations Face-Off rosters were officially revealed on Wednesday, and the Toronto Maple Leafs have players on each roster.
The Toronto Maple Leafs who will compete in the tournament are Auston Matthews (America), Mitch Marner (Canada), William Nylander (Sweden), and Jani Hakanpaa (Finland).
While the Leafs will be well represented, they should have another player representing Canada along with Marner.
Team Canada leaving Chris Tanev off the roster while including Colton Parayko and Travis Sanheim is laughable.
The Toronto Maple Leafs Chris Tanev is a perfect fit for Team Canada
When putting teams together, it's pretty simple to just pick the best available players. In reality, you need guys to fill certain roles to create the most effective roster.
Canada had plenty of options for offensive-minded defensemen. They took Cale Makar, Alex Pietrangelo and Shea Theodore, who are all offensively minded. I have no problems with those selections. Makar is arguably the best defenseman in the league and Pietrangelo and Theodore are both good options. There is also a lot of chemistry in that top four with Devon Toews also being selected. Josh Morrissey was selected as well, who was a lock.
My problems were with the last two selections from the defense core. With Canada in need of a couple shutdown defenseman, they looked to Colton Parayko and Travis Sanheim. Parayko has lost his minutes this season, posting an expected goals for percentage (xGF%) of 44.68, while Sanheim is barely winning his minutes, posting an xGF% of 51.7 (Stats from EvolvingHockey.com).
Chris Tanev has put up better numbers on a Leafs team that relies on him to shut down top competition every night. He has posted an xGF% of 54.54 while also posting an expected goals against per 60 minutes (xGA/60) of 1.77. Parayko posted an xGA/60 of 2.59 and Sanheim posted a marginally better 2.55. xGA/60 evens out things like goaltending to truly show how a player is performing defensively.
There is no excuse for these head-scratching decisions. Doug Armstrong is the general manager of the St.Louis Blues and is also in charge of building Team Canada. His bias led to the selection of Jordan Binnington with far better options available, like Logan Thompson. The Parayko selection is another example of Armstrong going with "his guy" rather than building the best roster Canada can ice.
Tanev doesn't put up flashy point totals, but he is a guy you can use in all situations. He currently leads the league in blocked shots and would be a valuable asset to this blueline (Stats from Statmuse.com).
Now that the roster is locked in this is what we Canadians are stuck with. Hopefully, they can bring home gold in this Olympic warmup.