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Kings winger Adrian Kempe and Ducks center Leo Carlsson were named to Team Sweden for the inaugural 4 Nations Face-Off, a new international hockey tournament that will unfold between Feb. 12 and Feb. 20 in Boston and Montreal.
The all-NHL-player event is part of the league’s renewed commitment to “best-on-best” international hockey competition. That will also include NHL participation in the next two Olympics after it forwent the Games in 2018 and 2022, as well as two World Cup of Hockey events in 2028 and 2032, a more consistent interval than the previous two tournaments of 2004 and 2016.
The 4 Nations field will include the United States and Canada, whose rosters will be revealed Thursday but appear unlikely to include any Kings or Ducks. Neighbor and rival Finland will also join Sweden, for whom Kempe and Carlsson will proudly don the Tre Kronor.
Kempe, who has played every position but goalie in his NHL career, had expressed enthusiasm about participating in the tournament during training camp, and that interest was requited by the Swedish federation. The 28-year-old led the Kings in points last season and in goals for the two prior campaigns. He has 12 goals and 24 points in 25 games in 2024-25.
“He’s really a utility guy, you can plug him in each and every role. He’s played alongside Anže Kopitar for years in L.A., and he excels on both sides of the ice. His skating is a weapon,” Swedish general manager Josef Boumedienne said. “We see him as a guy we can plug in in each and every role. He can kill penalties, be on the power play and is heavy down low in the offensive zone.”
Carlsson, 19, was the second overall pick in 2023’s NHL Entry Draft. He made a splash at age 18 but was limited somewhat by injuries and load management as a rookie, a decision by the Ducks that Boumedienne applauded along with Carlsson’s “huge summer” in the gym. This season, Carlsson has 11 points in 20 games, but four of his six goals have been of the game-winning variety. Carlsson has been sidelined for three games and counting by an upper-body injury he sustained Nov. 25. He will be the youngest player in a group that has no shortage of returners from its bronze-medal-winning squad at last spring’s World Championships.
“He deserves to make the team, not because he’s young, but because he’s a heck of a player,” Boumedienne said. “He’s one of the best play-drivers in the NHL, throughout the neutral zone, the way he carries the puck and the way he distributes the puck.”
The 4 Nations Face-Off was announced by the NHL and its players association at the 2024 NHL All-Star Weekend, an event that will be temporarily suspended this season so as not to congest the schedule and place any undue burden on competing players.
At the time of the announcement, Sweden was ranked sixth by the International Ice Hockey Federation. Canada occupied the top spot, followed by Finland, Russia, the United States and Germany. Germany did not have enough NHL players to field a full team and Russia has experienced ongoing obstacles toward participation in many events since its conflict with Ukraine began.
That’s led some to criticize the event as being less than a true “best-on-best” tournament. The last such event, 2016’s World Cup of Hockey, was underwhelming on the commercial, competitive and atmospheric fronts. No team, not even the amalgamated Team Europe to which Sweden lost in the semifinal, effectively challenged Canada. Television viewership was tepid. Even the ambiance north of the border felt a bit drowsy.
“It was weird. I thought there’d be more of a buzz in Toronto,” former Ducks center Ryan Kesler told the O.C. Register in 2016. “It just didn’t seem like there was a buzz. If you didn’t know what was going on, you wouldn’t even know teams were playing.”
Players who spoke Wednesday remarked that the recent lack of this type of competition and their alacrity to “represent their country and measure it against all countries,” as Minnesota goalie Filip Gustavsson said, motivated them.
“It (has been) almost 10 years since the last best-on-best tournament was played,” New Jersey goalie Jacob Markström said. “When you’re there, you’re thinking, oh, there’s an Olympics in two years and an Olympics four years after that, but it’s really a privilege. These tournaments, you never know how many you’re [going to get play in], or if you’re going to be able to play in one even.”
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