If Slovakia was given USA:s spot in the tournament and the U.S. players could only play on team 'left over' while the other players get to represent their country, something tells me you would feel different. It would have made a lot more sense to have eight gimmic teams instead of calling this an international tournament.
Imagine an international tournament with Canada, USA, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany, Latvia, Denmark and the Buffalo Sabres. Does that make sense?
Yes it's still gonna be a fun tournament and I'm gonna watch, but I feel for people from Slovakia and Switzerland. People there enjoy hockey and they have solid enough national teams. The casual Slovak or Swizz fan isn't going to tune into this tournament. I'm not even sure the casual Swedish fan will. The casual audicence is the biggest and thus the most important in terms of generating revenue and growing the sport.