How would a European 'other' team fair against the other top 5?

[Lolonegoal]

So latest news is we're getting a top 4 tourney. Let's say hypothetically either Russia is allowed back and the league wants to add a 6th team with remaining players, or they want to add a 5th team to the current format but still ban Russia. How would this team of primarily Czech, Slovakian, German and Swiss players combined, compare against Canada, the states, Finland, Sweden and Russia's rosters?

Here's a quick projected line-up:

Forwards

Stutzle - Draisaitl - Pastarnak
Ehler - Kopitar - Zuccarello
Fiala - Hischier - Meier
Necas - Hertl - Bjorkstrand
Tatar - Zacha - Niederreiter
Slafkovsky


Defense
Josi - Seider
Hronek - Gudas
Moser - Nemec
Cernak - Ruutta


Goaltenders
Andersen, Grubauer, Francouz, Mrazek, Vanecek, or Merzlikins

Click to read more...

 

[Pazucha]

That's a 115mil population

They better be good

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Better than Czechia and Finland. Similar to Sweden or Russia, yet likely a little worse.

 

[Czechboy]

They'd be very good but no thank you.

 

[alphahelix]

They'd be very good but no thank you.

From a Czech perspective, I get it, but when you’re already being excluded from the tournament (2025 ’4 nations cup’), wouldn’t you prefer to see the best Czech players on a team Europe rather than be eliminated from contention
altogether?

 

[MNRube]

Czechs deserve their own team. This one would be a damn juggernaut

 

[Czechboy]

From a Czech perspective, I get it, but when you’re already being excluded from the tournament (2025 ’4 nations cup’), wouldn’t you prefer to see the best Czech players on a team Europe rather than be eliminated from contention
altogether?

The last thing I want to see is any nations combined. This ain't the Ryder Cup.lol

If anything.. I hope excluding us wakes them up a little to fix their programming and get it back to a big five.

For my Czechs we are roughly 3 NHL d away from being eligible for such a tourney. We are slowly rebuilding and the future is as promising as it has been in a long time. The present sucks though.lol

 

[Lolonegoal]

The last thing I want to see is any nations combined. This ain't the Ryder Cup.lol

If anything.. I hope excluding us wakes them up a little to fix their programming and get it back to a big five.

For my Czechs we are roughly 3 NHL d away from being eligible for such a tourney. We are slowly rebuilding and the future is as promising as it has been in a long time. The present sucks though.lol

I mean I think we all want that from a tournament, but based on what we've already seen the league throwing together in the current limited 4 team tourney, and the previous circus show of including "North America under 24", I think this is logically the best way to have a limited cup with balance while including the leagues top players. I understand not wanting to combine countries, but I think not being able to be represented at all would suck more, and I don't really feel there's the same sense of nationalism in a cup like this, especially in comparison to the Olympics.

 

[Czechboy]

I mean I think we all want that from a tournament, but based on what we've already seen the league throwing together in the current limited 4 team tourney, and the previous circus show of including "North America under 24", I think this is logically the best way to have a limited cup with balance while including the leagues top players. I understand not wanting to combine countries, but I think not being able to be represented at all would suck more, and I don't really feel there's the same sense of nationalism in a cup like this, especially in comparison to the Olympics.

Just invite the Top 6 nations and let the nations with less NHL players use their Euro's or AHL guys.

I'm not saying you do but a lot of people seem to think that the Swiss, Germans, Czechs or Slovaks would be losing 15-0 to Canada/US/Finland/Sweden

We have loads of history from best on best to absolutely disprove this. The games would be close. There would be upsets. Last World Cup the Czechs beat the US and team Europe made the finals.

Best on Best Olympics have had some really insanely close games ... swiss or latvia vs Canada come to mind.

And that will be shown at the 2026 Olympics.

 

[garbageteam]

Finland would suddenly be the weakest team in the tournament (on paper) and I doubt they'd like that. Even as a poster alluded above Sweden and hypothetical Russia would like a word against this chimera.

Even if Canada is such a juggernaut, they would absolutely protest if an "all non-Canada" team was suddenly put up against them, even though they'd be fairly even. Like you don't throw away your national advantage by having other nations form imaginary super teams.

 

[Shawn Heins 44]

From a Czech perspective, I get it, but when you’re already being excluded from the tournament (2025 ’4 nations cup’), wouldn’t you prefer to see the best Czech players on a team Europe rather than be eliminated from contention
altogether?

One Swiss perspective here. I don't give a single damn about a mixed team. And from my hockey cosmos over here, noone cared about Team Europe last time around. Noone I konw watched any of their games and noone cared that they went to the finals.

It is pretty simple, when it is a country vs country tournament, you want your country in there or you are not really invested in it.

 

[Namejs]

One Swiss perspective here. I don't give a single damn about a mixed team. And from my hockey cosmos over here, noone cared about Team Europe last time around. Noone I konw watched any of their games and noone cared that they went to the finals.

It is pretty simple, when it is a country vs country tournament, you want your country in there or you are not really invested in it.

Exactly, almost no one cares about a purely commercial exhibition tournament, if there is no honest way of making it for the teams outside the top 4/6/whatever.

It's just not how international tournaments work.

Either there's a path in or it's a gimmicky exhibition tournament with half of the hockey world not really caring about it. Sort of an inverse World Championship.

They really should make some kind of a deal with IIHF and compromise a little. We should have best-on-best tournaments way more often than once in 6 or 8 years on average.

An 8 team World Cup with 4 or 6 teams qualifying based on IIHF rankings and 4-6 teams playing a short round robin for the remaining 2-4 spots would be ideal. There are at least 8 national teams that can be competitive with their AHL/Europe-based players and that's not including russia.

 

[Antiillafire]

One Swiss perspective here. I don't give a single damn about a mixed team. And from my hockey cosmos over here, noone cared about Team Europe last time around. Noone I konw watched any of their games and noone cared that they went to the finals.

It is pretty simple, when it is a country vs country tournament, you want your country in there or you are not really invested in it.

The only thing I liked about team Europe was sticking it to all the fans from NA who were clowning on the team. People saying the team wouldn’t win a game and it was just full of washed up players.

 

[legionista]

So latest news is we're getting a top 4 tourney. Let's say hypothetically either Russia is allowed back and the league wants to add a 6th team with remaining players, or they want to add a 5th team to the current format but still ban Russia. How would this team of primarily Czech, Slovakian, German and Swiss players combined, compare against Canada, the states, Finland, Sweden and Russia's rosters?

Here's a quick projected line-up:

Forwards

Stutzle - Draisaitl - Pastarnak
Ehler - Kopitar - Zuccarello
Fiala - Hischier - Meier
Necas - Hertl - Bjorkstrand
Tatar - Zacha - Niederreiter
Slafkovsky


Defense
Josi - Seider
Hronek - Gudas
Moser - Nemec
Cernak - Ruutta


Goaltenders
Andersen, Grubauer, Francouz, Mrazek, Vanecek, or Merzlikins

IMO this team would be 3rd or 4th, behind Canada, USA, Sweden. As for Russia, I haven't see them play for a very long time so hard to say if Russia would be better than this team or not, but I want to say the "other" team would be slightly stronger than Russia.

 

[RBbandit]

Fully agree with my fellow European fans. National teams only, the whole "rest of Europe team" is just BS. Would be very happy to watch Best on Best in the Olympics, but not the new Best of Four gimmick. Frankly miss old style Canada Cup from the 90s and even earlier.

 

[Golden_Jet]

They tried that, last time, no one liked it.