Five Thoughts For Friday: 4 Nations Champions Edition

Imagine being an American hockey fan, thinking your team is the best in the world, only to watch them squander two goals by Ottawa Senators players and lose to Jordan Binnington.

What a takedown by the Canadians. I was skeptical about how entertaining this tournament would be, but boy, was I wrong.

On a Successful Buildup to the Olympics

The success of the Four Nations tournament as a brand of entertaining hockey is nothing if not an indicator of just how starved NHL players have been for best-on-best international hockey. This makes sense, as it’s been over 10 years since the 2014 games in Sochi, the last time NHLers have skated for an Olympic medal. These recent games have really served to hype up the world for the return of NHL Olympic hockey.

Part of the fun of having both the men's and women's tournaments in the same games is seeing more countries in action than usual. As we know, Canada and U.S.A being wagons in a league of their own, is a common trend, but there are some fun differences as well – for example, could you imagine the men's Japanese hockey team laying a smackdown on Sweden?

On a Re-Energized Tkachuk and Sanderson

After accounting for 100% of Team USA's goals in the 3-2 loss to Canada, can we expect Brady Tkachuk and Jake Sanderson to bring that same level of play to the Senators down the stretch? Brady certainly didn't look like a player with 9 points in his last 20 games in that tournament, so perhaps playing in a clearly meaningful game will drive him to push the Sens to the playoffs after a lengthy drought.

Meanwhile, Sanderson has actually been one of Ottawa's most productive players of late – 10 points in his last 8 games – but his luck at even-strength hasn't improved. He and Artem Zub form one of the league's best pairs at suppressing chances against, but the finishing has been horrendous. Sanderson's never had this problem in the past, whether it's with Zub or Travis Hamonic, the team shot at around 7.5% over his first two seasons while he's on the ice. Not great, but not nearly as poor as the 3.92% he has this season.

The team would have at least 15 more 5-on-5 goals, and would be safely in a playoff spot if his teammates' shooting was on par with the last two seasons. Maybe his go-ahead goal yesterday will be the catalyst for some well-overdue regression to the mean. We can only hope.

On Matinpalo's Trial By Fire

Hats off to Nikolas Matinpalo for being named to Team Finland in a best-on-best international tournament, and skating in a victory over Sweden. That's a huge deal. The question now, is the impact this will have on his hockey career. Yes, he did get shellacked by the Canadians — but he should consider that a source of pride and valuable experience.

Tons of young defensemen see their careers take a turn for the worse after being thrown to the wolves earlier than they should be, but Matinpalo's 26 years old and has been playing professional hockey in Finland for years. He's played a full year in Belleville, gaining familiarity with Tyler Kleven in the process. It sure seems like he’s going to be fine at the very least.

I'm curious to see how he fares over the next few games. Personally, I think JBD has actually played better up to this point, but once he's healthy, I won't take issue with him being traded or waived if Matinpalo can transform his Four Nations experience into some improved play on the team's third pair.

On the Remaining Strength of Schedule

I did touch upon this topic in some previous pieces, but I wanted to provide some numbers to further illustrate the glorious opportunity the Sens have here. Even with Pinto and Norris injured, most of the team's victories have come off the back of defense and goaltending.

Two factors are in Ottawa's favour: a wealth of remaining home games, and a lack of quality opponents.

What is a quality opponent? I'm somewhat arbitrarily saying it's the 12 teams in divisional playoff spots, as well as the Avalanche, who are far and away the best Wildcard team, for a total of 13 teams, all with a points percentage of .596 at least.

At home, the Sens are 16-7-2, including 7-3-1 against quality opponents, so they should be able to competently protect the barn against tough teams like Winnipeg, Colorado, and Carolina. It wouldn't surprise me to see them win at least 10 of their remaining 16 home games.

While their road record of 13-16-2 is poor, when you consider that most of their losses have come to those tougher teams in the league (their road record against the weaker teams is 9-7-2), and only 3 of their 10 remaining road games are against quality opponents, it's reasonable to guess they could finish with a .500 road record, which should be enough for a playoff spot given their home dominance.

A Playoff Berth = A Jack Adams for Travis Green

With all due respect to Spencer Carbery, who has coached the most improved team of the season in the Washington Capitals, you know the NHL loves a compelling story. The Ottawa Senators aren't in a mere playoff drought, they're looking to accomplish something of note for the first time since an unprecedented teardown.

They weren't just an awful hockey team, during the period bookended by the Erik Karlsson and Mark Stone trades, they were the laughingstock of North American sports. Things have improved significantly since then, of course, but until we see an 'X' next to them in the standings, we haven't reached the light at the end of the tunnel.

Tim Stützle, Brady Tkachuk and co. have been around for years now, but it's the addition of Travis Green that's got them playing the right way. Almost like they needed to sacrifice offense for the sake of rounding out their play, which was necessary to win close, low-scoring games. And once they've got that down, adding the offense back into the mix won't be a problem.

This is why Green should be a lock for the Jack Adams trophy if he's behind the bench during an Ottawa Senators playoff game. Not just for his impact on the team's top players, not just for his stingy brand of defense, but for finally letting us see that all of this bullshit was worth it in the end.