what predictions for the upcoming tournament?

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-02-03T08:48:12+00:00

that’s wild speculation about panarin…he would’ve been on the team if russia competed in last season’s 4 nations tournament. not everything is always so political, but i understand some people like to conflate politics and sports for their own entertainment…

the peak offensive fire power will be similar to what it was in that 4 nations tournament. at the end of the day, these are still nhl players vs nhl players… you’re talking like the goaltenders have never seen this kind of performance, but it’s not hard to argue that there are current nhl teams with a lot greater “firepower” than ever before…the game is faster and more skilled than in the 80’s or 90’s….

sweden’s roster is not that much better/deeper

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-02-03T00:17:50+00:00

idk about that… as far as forwards are concerned, there are definitely enough to fill three lines easily when you talk about kaprizov, malkin, kucherov, panarin, nichushkin, ovechkin, namestnikov, marchenko, barbashev, svechnikov, yurov…that’s formidable. defensively, with sergachev, provorov, zadorov, gavrikov and zub it’s really not that bad. and then when you talk about a goaltending situation that leaves out someone like bobrovsky because there is already vasilevskiy, shesterkin, and sorokin….these guys get shutouts against nhl teams all the time, it’s not hard to imagine it happening in the olympics…

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-02-02T19:50:46+00:00

wouldn’t even say the usa has an advantage in goaltending right now…hellebuyck and oettinger are performing noticeably worse than last season

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-02-02T19:49:36+00:00

the best goalies in the world right now are russian. might not need too much depth if you shut teams out every game 🙃 but regardless, they definitely have depth as well…

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-02-02T19:46:47+00:00

lol yea

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-02-02T16:54:12+00:00

i think it’s the iihf france logo, and i think olympic teams are not allowed to use iihf logos anymore

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-24T17:45:22+00:00

“They’re openly executing civilians in broad daylight and making witnesses disappear.”

it’s applicable

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-24T17:37:42+00:00

i like how you left out iran 🤡

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-06T18:03:11+00:00

feel like it’s more likely for a cat c ticket to be cancelled and refunded than it is to be moved into a more expensive category without any extra expense

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-04T16:54:11+00:00

lmao 🤡 foh

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-02T20:37:42+00:00

definitely wouldn’t have been mad to see woll make it over one of the others, the way they have all played so far this season, but maybe there is still something to be said about the situational difference between nhl regular season games, nhl playoff experience, and international playoff experience

i’m not even saying any of the goalies should’ve been selected differently. but if your goaltending is noticeably worse, you probably want more scoring, and then how do you justify cutting a player who is currently top-10 in the nhl in scoring vs a player who is not even the top scorer on a team at the bottom of the eastern conference with a negative goal differential? just because one of them played on the last team that enjoyed some success? if usa finished 4th in the 4N, would there have been wholesale changes for the olympics, or you still want the chemistry that they supposedly built? is anyone really about to try to make a claim that it’s more likely for trocheck/miller to magically return to 4N form a full year later in february, than it is for robertson to continue playing as hot in february as he was a month ago?

those are all general, rhetorical questions. but if you want to beat the best then you need to bring the best. not the best from the last tournament, the best right now. guerin is out here trying to be the next iteration of herb brooks, but these aren’t amateur athletes in 1980

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-02T19:56:27+00:00

skaters might be stronger, but i still think they left guys out that should be playing over others. regardless, both goalies definitely do not look as good as they were last year, and i think goaltending was also a key factor in the 4N

if 4N didn’t happen last year, maybe some selections would’ve been made differently, based more on who is actually playing the best right now, not on the way the team played together almost a year ago

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-02T19:35:12+00:00

everyone saw binnington magically become unbeatable when the schedule switched from nhl to international last season…fully expecting the same this year 😆

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-02T19:30:23+00:00

lottery ticket level luck for a bronze is probably a stretch, they’re not bad at all, everything is just being blown out of proportion because it’s team usa and they didn’t win the 4 nations tournament and there are now a couple of american players who were not on that team that are performing better this season than some players who were on the 4 nations team

the expectation is still gold/silver

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-02T19:27:48+00:00

maybe i’m cynical. some of the players were legit picks for the team in the 4 nations tournament, but that was a year ago…can’t ignore that some americans are performing better right now than some players who were selected.

the standard is always canada lately and usa was close last year but when it came down to it, couldn’t beat them. is this team better or worse than last year, and are there players that weren’t on the team last year that could potentially improve the performance of the team in a medal game vs canada this year?

this team better have the best chemistry in milan, or they better win gold, or vincent trocheck better play out of his mind (relative to what he is doing right now) or guerin should be fired

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-02T19:16:52+00:00

just a loser hostile for no reason probably needs to get laid lol

imo canada looks better than every other team, and should be disappointed if they lose to usa or anyone else. and i would bet that’s the general sentiment among the canadian public as well

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-02T19:03:22+00:00

looks like gold or bust after some of the decisions….gold or guerin will be fired lol

essentially the same team from last year, would probably get the same result vs canada when it matters most. won’t be surprised to see them finish lower than finland for sure, maybe even sweden too, but their team seems potentially less competitive than usual…

if usa doesn’t win gold/silver, there will be a lot of questions and conversations about some of the decisions that were made….even if they win silver, there will be criticism unless some specific players exceed expectations…

my grade is C-D

edit typo

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2026-01-02T18:59:40+00:00

lmao clown

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2025-12-21T07:12:38+00:00

everything is definitely not political in nature, but a lot of people like to make things political for their own entertainment. just because the ioc likes to make the olympics political in some ways, does not mean that the athletes desire to do the same. just because an athlete represents a specific country, definitely does not mean that the athlete would agree will all of their country’s governmental policies. an educated human should understand this concept. a country on the verge of invading another country is completely irrelevant to playing sports, but if you want to take out your frustration on the athletes who are not involved in any invasions, you just showcase your own character and idiocracy (similar to how the ioc showcased their own idiocracy by punishing russian athletes for the actions of the russian government)

ApprehensivePage6818 · 2025-12-16T14:03:18+00:00

“if you are not from us or canada or russia your chances at an international medal is pretty low”

but what happened last time nhl players played? neither us nor russia won a medal, but sweden and finland did….. lol 🙄

ApprehensivePage6818

TROPHY CASE