On Friday, Team USA unveiled its roster for next month’s Winter Olympics, and three players who were left out of the 4 Nations Face-Off last year made the cut this time.
Utah’s Clayton Keller and Buffalo’s Tage Thompson join the team up front, while Florida’s Seth Jones is the only newcomer on defence. They replace Anaheim’s Chris Kreider and New York’s Adam Fox from the 4 Nations Face-Off roster.
Here is a look at each new player on Team USA, plus the one decision that will generate the most debate:
Seth Jones
Jones was impressive during Florida’s Stanley Cup run last season, averaging a team-high 25:30 of ice time per game. That has carried over to this season; Jones (24:01 TOI per game) plays a role in every facet of the game, quarterbacking the Panthers’ top power-play unit and contributing to their sixth-ranked penalty kill.
“In a long playoff run, you show that you can play with physicality in many different situations for another two and a half months,” Jones told reporters at Team USA’s orientation camp last summer. “Hopefully, they saw that, that I can do that.”
At 6-foot-4, Jones uses his long reach to disrupt opponents. He blocks 5.7 passes per game, ninth most among defencemen this season, and is one of the best at holding in pucks at the offensive blue line.
Fox’s exclusion raised eyebrows. The 2021 Norris Trophy winner, who just returned to the Rangers’ lineup after missing 14 games because of injury, remains an elite offensive producer. But The Athletic reported Wednesday that Team USA management “was concerned about pace of play being an issue for Fox at the 4 Nations (Face-Off).”
Clayton Keller
Keller’s addition provides Team USA with one of the league’s most dynamic playmakers. The Mammoth captain, who has 36 points in 41 games this season, ranks inside the top 10 in completed slot passes (131), slot-driving plays (209) and offensive-zone possession time (41:50).
As team captain, Keller put up seven assists and 10 points in 10 games for the Americans last May as they won gold at the IIHF World Championship for the first time since 1933.
“It (stunk not playing at the 4 Nations Face-Off), but I wasn't going to let it keep me down the rest of the year,” Keller told NHL.com earlier this season. “I think after that I played my best hockey of the season. I was super motivated after that and wanted to maybe show them they made a mistake. I think it helped me out.”
Tage Thompson
Last year, Thompson was widely considered the biggest snub from Team USA’s 4 Nations Face-Off team, which he used as motivation entering this season.
It clearly worked, because Thompson will be headed to Italy next month. He leads the surging Sabres with 37 points, which puts him on pace for the second-highest total of his career (78).
Thompson, who is listed at 6-foot-6 and 220 pounds, is the engine that drives Buffalo’s offence. His 391 offence-generating plays — a statistic that includes slot passes and carries, as well as loose puck recoveries in the slot and other plays that tend to lead to goals — rank 19th in the league and fifth among American players.
Although Thompson is not a defensive stopper, he can be counted on to win puck battles, ranking tied for 39th in the league in that category. And he brings positional versatility, having lined up at centre and wing for the Sabres.
Like Keller, Thompson showed what he can do on the international stage when he recorded six goals and nine points in 10 games at the World Championship last year. Thompson scored the championship-winning goal for Team USA.
Biggest snub: Dallas’ Jason Robertson
Robertson’s 48 points this season are the most among American players, and his 24 goals are second only to Minnesota’s Matt Boldy (25). In fact, Robertson is the league’s highest-producing American player since the start of the 2022-23 season with 317 points — 16 more than Toronto’s Auston Matthews.
Robertson uses his size (6-foot-3, 204 pounds) effectively to get to prime scoring areas, trailing only Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon with 102 slot shots on net this season. That includes 49 shots from the inner slot, which are tied for seventh in the league. Overall, Robertson has the sixth-most expected goals — a reflection of his outstanding shot quality.
Shootouts are part of the Olympic tournament (minus the gold-medal game), and Robertson is one of the league’s most proficient sharpshooters. Since becoming a full-time NHL player in 2020-21, Robertson has scored a league-leading 20 shootout goals on 36 shots (55.6 per cent), including 15 goals on 23 shots (65.2 per cent) over the past three-plus seasons.
The Americans have had trouble scoring against their peers in international competition. As Adam Gretz noted on his Substack, Team USA has scored 20 goals in eight medal-round games (2.5 per game) over the past five best-on-best tournaments involving NHL players. Canada, by comparison, has scored 40 goals in 12 medal-round games (3.33 per game) over that span.
Robertson would have helped solve that problem, but Team USA chose to leave him home.
All stats via Sportlogiq
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