The 4 Nations Face-Off Is Bringing the State of Hockey Hope and FOMO

Let me be the first person brave enough to say it: The 4 Nations Face-Off rules. I want more. I'll take an international seven-game series, pseudo-Stanley Cup Final of this every year, please.

Especially when it means that Minnesota Wild players get to go out and dominate. Look at Joel Eriksson Ek against Team USA on Monday night! The Wild center was vintage JEEK, turning the tide of play against some of the toughest assignments in the world. Matt Boldy and Brock Faber have shined for Team USA throughout the tournament, with both being a reason they'll get a chance to dunk on Canada again on Thursday.

Seeing so many Wild representatives at the Face-Off is awesome for the State of Hockey. Only the Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights sent more players to the tournament. With Russia and Austria not among the Four Nations, Minnesota is making an impact without (arguably) its two best players in 2024-25, Kirill Kaprizov and Marco Rossi.

That's a lot of star power from Minnesota, which is great. It's a big reason the Wild are 10 points up on the playoff bubble, which should make fans happy. Still, it's also weirdly making the season feel a touch empty.

We're getting to see the Wild's best play with top players in the NHL, and unsurprisingly, they're balling out. Then you look at what they've done in the last month or so, scuffling into the break with a 7-8-0 record, mostly without Kaprizov.

We're seeing the team's lack of depth take a toll. Boldy has gone pointless in seven of his last ten games, with two big performances giving him two goals and seven points in that span. Faber has taken a step back offensively on the season and has been out-chanced at 5-on-5 play. Eriksson Ek has just two goals and five points in his past 14 games. 

But hot damn, look what happens when, say, Eriksson Ek is playing with Adrian Kempe and Lucas Raymond instead of Marcus Johansson. Faber is back to being a shutdown guy next to a legit top-pair defenseman in Jaccob Slavin. Look at the force Boldy is on a forechecking line with stars alongside him. You can't say anything bad about them. 

On one hand, this is a preview of what's to come in Minnesota. When the Liam Ohgrens and Danila Yurovs and David Jiriceks and Zeev Buiums start blossoming, look at the core already in place. But I can't get out of my head the idea that we're seeing what the Wild have been robbed of by the choking presence of the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts.

When we return to reality this weekend, we'll see these Wild stars scraping by again while the front office has to do cap management wizardry to afford AHL call-ups and waiver claims. But now we're seeing what Minnesota's best players get to do when playing with genuine luxuries.

That element has been largely absent in Minnesota in the 2020s. Basically, Kaprizov is their luxury by virtue of being (arguably) the first superstar in team history. Everything else has been homegrown talent or discount-bin free agents and trade acquisitions.

The most luxurious move they've made in this decade is, what? Trading for Marc-Andre Fleury in the twilight of his career?

No disrespect, but that paints a bleak picture of the Wild's ability to maximize their would-be window. Especially this year, where the theme of the NHL has been, arguably, trading for luxuries. The Carolina Hurricanes saw a window to trade for Mikko Rantanen, and they took it. Same with the New York Rangers and Miller, or to a lesser extent, the Calgary Flames and Joel Farabee and the Dallas Stars with Mikael Granlund.

Would Minnesota have loved any of those players on their squad? Almost certainly. Can they make that work? Absolutely not.

They have every reason and motivation to trade for Brock Nelson, Boldy and Faber's Team USA comrade, who carries a fairly cheap $6 million cap hit. Except... they're projected to finish the year over the cap, and unless a big-money player misses roughly the trade deadline to the end of the regular season, there's no chance Minnesota can pull off such a move.

None of this should detract from what the Wild have accomplished with their cap restrictions. They're (probably) going to make the playoffs for the third season in the last four while having $15 million less to spend than everyone else this year. That's a strong effort by the front office and scouting staff to manage that feat. 

But if they could do that while barely being able to afford the necessities, then damn... what could this team have been in the past four years if they could have swung a trade for a bonafide luxury player like Matthew Tkachuk or Jack Eichel or Sam Reinhart? What if they could throw some money at a legit top free agent like defenseman Dougie Hamilton or Ryan O'Reilly?

Sure, Minnesota arguably didn't need any of those players, but that's kind of the point. The Wild have had to spend all their resources trying to keep their team glued together through these buyout years, whereas the likes of Vegas and Florida have been able to double and triple down on their strengths.

Hopefully, Minnesota can rejoin those ranks next season when those buyout penalties mostly come off the books. But for now, I'm looking at what the Wild's best players are doing while playing with the NHL's best and wondering what could have been.