Hot off the heels of USA Hockey’s announcement that Bill Guerin will serve as the team’s GM for the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off and Olympic Winter Games, Daily Faceoff Live’s Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Servalli discussed the work ahead for one of the pre-tournament favorites:
Tyler Yaremchuk: In the last four Olympics with NHL participation, USA has medaled in three of them with two silver and a bronze. But I think Guerin is absolutely the right man for the job here. Do you see it a different way?
Frank Seravalli: No, I don’t. This was really one of the most coveted jobs in hockey… This spot was kind of Bill Guerin’s to lose because he was picked to be the GM of the 2022 team in Beijing. He never got to live that down because NHL players didn’t go. He had done a lot of the work already had begun to put a staff together. I think it’s important to get out ahead of this if you’re USA Hockey because you’ve got the 4 Nations Face-Off. That’s in one calendar a month from this weekend and you have to name your first six players this summer.
So, in some ways you think, OK, that’s pretty easy. Just check off a couple of Hughes brothers, a couple Tkachuk brothers, and Austin Matthews and call it a day. Building out this team, no USA Hockey GM will have had as tough of a job as Bill Guerin does because they’ve never had a talent pool like this to pick from, and it’s going to be fascinating.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Guerin took over as GM of the Wild back in 2019. He’s a guy who’s played in three Olympics for Team USA as well. But there’s no denying this group they’re going to have in 2025 for the 4 Nations and in 2026 for the Olympics. Frankly, they’ve never had a roster with this much talent.
I think a lot of people just default to Canada being the favorite, but when you look at the goaltending difference, too. As a Canadian, you can very easily make the argument that the best roster on paper just because of adding in that goaltending difference, it might be Team USA.
Frank Seravalli: That’s where I lean now, but it’s hard to argue against a Team Canada that can have Connor, McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Sidney Crosby that they could throw out there… It will be fascinating to see.
Watch the full episode here:
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