Welcome to the Boston portion of the 4 Nations Face-Off. After opening the tournament in Montreal, all four teams hopped on a plane and matriculated to Boston to finish off the inaugural “best-on-best” tournament. Today’s games will finish off the group-play stage of the tournament and set the match-ups for the finals. With regulation wins in their first two games, Team USA has clinched a spot in the final regardless of how they do against Team Sweden tonight. Everything else is up in the air.
Having every team still in contention is exactly what the NHL wanted heading into the last day of group play as it provides a ton of clinching scenarios. Let’s break it down:
Team USA – clinched a spot in the finals
Team Canada – clinches a berth with a regulation win against Finland, or if they defeat Finland in overtime or a shootout AND the Teams USA vs. Sweden game ends with any result other than Sweden winning in regulation.
Team Finland – basically the same scenario as Canada. Win in regulation and they are in, win in OT or a shootout and hope Sweden wins in regulation.
Team Sweden – Needs to beat the USA in regulation and hope that Canada-Finland goes to overtime.
Got it? Good.
The first game kicks off at 1:00 PM EST with Finland hosting Canada and will be broadcast on TNT, TRUTV, and streamed on MAX. The second game will be at 8:00 PM and feature the US and Sweden. That game is also on TNT, TRUTV, and MAX.
While the NHL is glad that everyone is still in contention, they are likely rooting for the match-up everyone else is – Team USA vs. Team Canada. Their first tilt on Saturday averaged 4.4 million viewers with a peak of 5.2 million, the highest non-Stanley Cup Finals game since 2019. Could a rematch on Wednesday top that number? Possibly, but Saturday’s game was broadcast over local ABC affiliates while the championship game is scheduled to be shown on ESPN.
Team USA isn’t planning on taking tonight’s game off. While there is a chance that Jeremy Swayman gets a start in his NHL home city in place of Connor Hellebuyck, the Americans don’t want to mess with the rhythm they’ve established with wins over Finland and Canada. They also know that Sweden, the only team not to have a victory in the tournament so far, will be throwing everything they have at them in order to advance.
It should be an interesting day of hockey. Enjoy!
