Friday Four: Is there room for Tom Wilson on Team Canada?

The Friday Four is a collection of thoughts and information on some intriguing player storylines from around the NHL. On deck this week is:

• Tom Wilson making a case for Team Canada

• Ducks' plan for Leo Carlsson paying big dividends

• Charlie McAvoy poised for career year offensively

• Marcus Johansson providing Wild huge value

Tom Wilson, Washington Capitals

Doug Armstrong has a problem on his hands, but it’s a good one. 

Time is ticking for the Team Canada general manager to finalize his roster for next February’s Olympics, and things have become more complicated since the 4 Nations Face-Off. Several players who were left off last year’s squad are making compelling cases to be included this time around. Whichever way Armstrong decides to go to shape his team, it’s inevitably going to leave a handful of players disappointed. 

One of those names could be Tom Wilson. The Washington Capitals forward is playing some of the best hockey of his career, averaging a point per game after posting a career-best 33 goals and 65 points a year ago. Add in the fact that Wilson has a Stanley Cup to his name, plenty of big-game experience and brings a rough-and-tumble style of play that’s a pain for opposing teams to deal with, and he does have a good resume for inclusion. 

That said, even with Canada being able to bring 14 forwards to the Olympics compared to 13 at the 4 Nations, Wilson would still be hard-pressed to make the team. That’s mainly because a few other players who have taken a massive step this season are likely ahead of him in line and it’s hard to see a bunch of forwards being removed that were part of the championship team at the 4 Nations. 

Here’s a look at the forwards who were part of the team in February:

• Connor McDavid
• Nathan MacKinnon
• Sidney Crosby
• Anthony Cirelli
• Brad Marchand
• Mark Stone
• Brandon Hagel
• Seth Jarvis
• Brayden Point
• Mitch Marner
• Sam Reinhart
• Travis Konecny
• Sam Bennett

Out of that group, McDavid, MacKinnon, Crosby, Jarvis, Point, Marner and Reinhart should be locks. Cirelli and Hagel are likely penciled in as well, considering how much coach Jon Cooper trusts them with the Tampa Bay Lightning and he surely has a fair bit of say into the roster construction. Maybe after last year’s tournament, where he had a tough time handling the speed at times, you could’ve made a case that Marchand was on the bubble, but an incredible Cup run and hot start to 2025-26 secure his spot. 

That leaves Bennett, Konecny and Stone. I think the only reason Stone wouldn’t be included is because of injury. He’s hurt now and has had trouble staying healthy in recent years, so there’s a possibility a spot opens up if he can’t play. Bennett is off to a really slow start, but he’s a big-game performer who was great at the 4 Nations. I think that pedigree probably gets him in. Then there’s Konecny, who has really picked it up lately but was scratched for Canada’s most important games at the 4 Nations and went pointless at the tournament. He seems like the most likely candidate to be left off. So, even with the extra forward Canada can take to the Olympics, realistically it feels like there may be only two or three spots available. 

Now let’s look at who wasn’t on that 4 Nations squad besides Wilson who deserves a look:

• Macklin Celebrini
• Connor Bedard
• Nick Suzuki
• Mark Scheifele
• John Tavares
• Bo Horvat
• Wyatt Johnston

There could be some others in the mix by the time rosters have to be submitted, but these are the guys that figure to get the closest look. One thing working against Wilson is all these players can play centre. That means more roster flexibility and help in the face-off circle if required. Celebrini and Bedard have exploded offensively this year but are both inexperienced. I think at least one makes it, I’d bet Celebrini, but it wouldn’t shock me if both were taken. I think with the complete game Suzuki plays, he’ll be there and then Scheifele probably has the next-best case. The Winnipeg Jets forward was excellent last season and has picked up right where he left off. 

One thing that is working for Wilson is his style of play. None of the new hopefuls can play with his physicality, and we saw how big a part of the game that was at the 4 Nations, especially when dealing with the Tkachuks and the rest of the American team. The issue is fighting is prohibited at the Olympics and results in an ejection, so I don’t think we’ll see as many shenanigans as we did at the 4 Nations. Plus, Bennett could fill that physical role if needed and he is coming off a Conn Smythe Trophy and has proved to be excellent in high-pressure games. It’s hard to see them choosing Wilson over Bennett to fill that need. 

It's not impossible for Wilson to work his way onto the Olympic squad, as there’s a lot of time between now and Olympic puck drop. Injuries can play a big factor and we saw players at the 4 Nations make an impact that we didn’t even expect to be on the team. But right now, the path for Wilson and a bunch of other Canadian forwards appears to be filled with obstacles. It’s not that they aren’t deserving, there’s just only so many spots available. 

Leo Carlsson, Anaheim Ducks

Leo Carlsson didn’t want to let Celebrini and Bedard have all the fun this season. All three, who aren’t yet old enough to drink in the cities they play in, have taken the NHL by storm. Celebrini and Bedard aren’t that surprising, based on what they’ve shown in their brief careers, but I’m not sure many expected Carlsson to be this good this quickly. 

The 20-year-old recently had an 11-game point streak, averaging nearly two points per game over that stretch. Carlsson is already more than halfway to his career high of 45 points, something he is poised to obliterate this season. Most importantly, though, he has the Anaheim Ducks sitting in first place in the Pacific Division after the team has missed the playoffs for seven straight seasons. 

Carlsson has taken a different path than Bedard and Celebrini to his breakout campaign. The Ducks chose a more cautious approach of acclimating Carlsson to the NHL, while Bedard and Celebrini hit the ground running and were NHL regulars immediately. Anaheim instead opted for load management in Carlsson’s rookie season, choosing to manage his workload in the first half of the 2023-24 campaign. That sometimes meant not playing both games in back-to-back situations and having a limited number of games per week. Carlsson ended up playing just 55 games that year as an 18-year-old, something that was more comparable to what he had been playing in Sweden. 

Most people feel it’s best for a young player like Carlsson to be playing regularly, whether that’s in the NHL or another development league. We’ve seen instances this year where the likes of Easton Cowan, Michael Misa and Zayne Parekh were scratched for a game here and there, leaving fans perplexed. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. The rigors of a full 82-game NHL schedule aren’t easy to manage. Taking a game off every so often for recovery and to watch from the press box isn’t the end of the world at the start of what fans hope is a long career for all these players. 

Every player is different and that’s why each team shouldn’t have a one-size-fits-all plan for every prospect. The Ducks thought outside the box where Carlsson is concerned, and it’s paying big dividends. Trust the process. 

Charlie McAvoy, Boston Bruins

The Boston Bruins were counted out this season long before the puck dropped on opening night. After Boston failed to make the playoffs last season for the first time since 2016 and traded away captain Brad Marchand, expectations were down for a team with a new head coach that was planning to give a bunch of opportunities to young and unproven players. 

Fast forward to today, though, and the Bruins are right in the mix in the Eastern Conference thanks to a mark of 11-8-0. That’s in large part thanks to Charlie McAvoy, who is having an usually hot start to the campaign offensively. McAvoy hasn’t scored yet, but he already has 14 assists in 18 games. The 27-year-old has always been known as a reliable blue-liner who can play in any situation and handle tough matchups, though he’s never been a huge point producer. 

McAvoy’s career high in points is 56, and he’s topped the 50-point mark only twice in his career. This year, he’s on his way to clear 60 in a season where the Bruins badly need it. They’ve lost a bunch of offence with Marchand gone, and Viktor Arvidsson and Elias Lindholm have had underwhelming starts. Without McAvoy’s offensive output, there’s a good chance the Bruins would be jockeying for position near the East basement rather than holding down a top-three spot in the Atlantic.

The Bruins are one of the few teams without a captain, and after the Marchand trade, they perhaps lost a little bit of their identity. There are only a few candidates to assume the role in Boston, with McAvoy and David Pastrnak right at the top of list. McAvoy is probably the more vocal of the two, and this summer he wasn’t shy in coming out and saying the Bruins were a playoff team every day of the week, in his mind. That caught some off guard, but so far, McAvoy has backed up his words and that is just the kind of statement both on and off the ice that should be considered captain material. 

Marcus Johansson, Minnesota Wild

When the Minnesota Wild re-signed Marcus Johansson last June, it didn’t attract much attention. Johansson inked a modest one-year, $800,000 deal with the Wild and expectations were low on the veteran making a significant impact during the 2025-26 campaign. For one, Johansson was turning 35 before the year began and was coming off back-to-back seasons where he failed to score 35 points. 

However, Johansson is off to a torrid start and is proving to be one of the best value deals this season. The Wild forward has 15 points in 18 games and just concluded a nine-game point streak. Johansson is holding down a spot in the top six, getting a chance to play with Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy, which is a great position to be in. He has the best of both worlds, in the sense that Boldy is someone who is an elite offensive player and Eriksson Ek is very responsible at both ends of the ice, making it the perfect deployment for a crafty veteran like Johansson to thrive. 

It never hurts for a young player like Boldy to play with an experienced skater like Johansson, someone who just celebrated his 1,000^th game in the National Hockey League. Boldy is highly skilled, but Johansson’s calming presence can really be good to lean on during challenging times. That’s something Boldy recently went through, when he tallied just one goal over a 10-game stretch before breaking out of it with four goals in his past four. 

Johansson’s surprise uptick in offence to start the season has been desperately needed by the Wild. The team started off slow and endured a stretch of only one win in nine games, which pushed them down the standings. They’ve recently righted the ship, though, thanks in part to the consistent offence from Johansson for a team that was desperate for a spark. Still, Minnesota is on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoff picture and things could be a lot worse without the unexpected contributions from Johansson.