Few within the sport have skilled the fast evolution of American hockey as up shut and personally as Mike Modano.
Rising up simply exterior Detroit, Modano was a minor hockey star. He spent his junior years within the WHL in Prince Albert, Sask., which was at the moment the best stage accessible to American youngsters.
Picked first within the 1988 NHL Draft, Modano performed 4 years with the Minnesota North Stars earlier than relocation in 1993-94 led him to Dallas. There, he led the Stars to the first-ever Stanley Cup title for a group from the U.S. Sunbelt.
Modano noticed how hockey shortly exploded in Texas from that 1999 championship on and the way it unfold into different non-traditional markets after the NHL expanded throughout the nation all through the last decade.
Twenty-five years later, extra American children are taking part in hockey than ever. Extra Individuals are taking part in within the NHL than ever, too.
It’s all constructed as much as this: Workforce USA, with a captain in Auston Matthews from Scottsdale, Ariz., enters the 4 Nations Face-Off — the game’s first best-on-best occasion in 9 years — as the favourite.
Modano, 54, retired in 2011 because the NHL’s all-time main scorer amongst U.S.-born gamers. He gained gold on the 1996 World Cup and silver on the 2002 Olympics however admits it feels completely different watching this subsequent technology of Workforce USA compete internationally.
The Individuals are now not the underdogs, as was typically the case all through his profession.
He credit not solely the fast improve in expertise from new sources but in addition the event work within the trenches by USA Hockey over the past 20 years for getting them there.
Individuals aren’t going to the Canadian junior leagues anymore to excel. They keep near house and so they’re higher than ever.
“You simply have a lot to pick from,” Modano stated of the breadth of expertise accessible to the Individuals on the 4 Nations occasion, the place the U.S. opens play in opposition to Finland on Thursday in Montreal. “Now there’s somewhat little bit of strain and expectation stage, which is good for the gamers to have.
“There’s somewhat stress going into it earlier than these tournaments. It’s not ‘We hope to do OK, however we’re lower than Canada’s or Russia’s velocity.’ Now (we’re) talked about in the identical breath as these high groups.”
When Modano gained the Stanley Cup in Texas in 1999, the variety of Individuals within the NHL was truly on the decline. European gamers had begun to flood the league, to the purpose that Individuals solely performed 17 p.c of the NHL’s video games that season.
Canada, lengthy the game’s dominant energy, led the best way at 54 p.c.
By this season, nonetheless, the U.S. had almost doubled its NHL participation to 30 p.c, an all-time excessive. It has gained appreciable floor on the Canadians the previous 20 years.
The beforehand farfetched notion that the Individuals may surpass Canada — each internationally and in illustration on the earth’s high league — has grow to be a really actual risk.
Primarily based on current tendencies, it may occur in somewhat greater than a decade.
“All through the lineup, man alive, they’ve bought nice puck-moving defensemen,” Modano stated of Workforce USA’s 4 Nations roster. “They’ve bought nice goaltending. Up entrance, there’s some high-end ability.
“If something, they’re simply going to maintain getting higher. You could have this altering of the guard, with Canada, that’s slowly type of tilting the needle the opposite approach somewhat bit.”
What follows is a breakdown of the 4 largest causes the U.S. might quickly take over as the highest hockey energy on the earth — if it hasn’t already.
GO DEEPER
Rating the 4 Nations Face-Off rosters: America’s golden period is right here
The NTDP mannequin
By the center of the Nineties, USA Hockey knew it had an issue — not less than because it associated to high-end expertise with the boys’s nationwide group.
Certain, there have been Corridor of Famers on the high of the listing; Modano, Brian Leetch, Brett Hull, Chris Chelios, Phil Housley and Jeremy Roenick had been, to various levels, nonetheless of their primes. Past these guys and some others, reminiscent of Keith Tkachuk and Tony Amonte, the participant pool for worldwide tournaments bought shallow in a short time.
Instance A: The 1994 World Championships in Italy, the place the U.S. was smoked 8-0 by Finland within the semifinals, then misplaced to Sweden within the bronze-medal sport. Craig Janney, a productive, play-making middle who by no means made an NHL All-Star group, led that group in scoring with seven factors. Behind him in scoring had been Tim Sweeney, who performed 291 NHL video games over eight seasons, and Invoice Lindsay, a strong bottom-sixer for the Florida Panthers.
Canada’s high scorers? Paul Kariya, Brendan Shanahan, Joe Sakic and Luc Robitaille, all Corridor of Famers.
After one other quarterfinal loss on the 1995 Worlds (to Canada), the U.S. was prepared for a change.
“We weren’t successful internationally. We weren’t producing sufficient NHL gamers and elite stage NHL gamers as we thought we may, primarily based on the amount of gamers in our nation,” USA Hockey govt director Pat Kelleher stated. “So we did one thing completely different and one thing higher.”
USA Hockey’s first step was hiring Jeff Jackson, a two-time NCAA championship-winning coach at Lake Superior State, and Bob Mancini, the top coach at Michigan Tech, and giving them carte blanche. Actually. The 2 sat down with a pad of paper, filling it with their concepts on what the most effective American gamers wanted in an effort to turn into world-beaters, and the way greatest to get it to them.
Thus, in 1996, the U.S. Nationwide Workforce Improvement Program was born. USA Hockey would construct two groups — an under-18 group and an under-17 one — out of the most effective gamers of their start years, home them in Ann Arbor, Mich., centralize their coaching and remedy the nation’s foremost hockey downside.
The plan was to create, as Kelleher referred to as it, “a ending faculty for these high-end children.” Jackson was the top coach of the U18 group and senior director; Mancini led the U17 group and acted as director of participant personnel. Each groups began taking part in video games within the fall of 1997 in opposition to squads from the NCAA, USHL and NAHL, a Tier II junior hockey league.
Jackson and Mancini had the assist of their huge bosses, however not each essential stakeholder was initially on board. The prospect of USA Hockey swooping in and choosing off a area’s greatest gamers, as one would anticipate, didn’t go over effectively with the locals.
“(Considerations about taking gamers) bought proper right down to the grassroots,” Mancini stated. “I used to be bodily accosted in a rink. I used to be chased out of rinks by coaches and individuals who could not see the good thing about what USA Hockey was attempting to do.”
There have been, in fact, much less dramatic forces at play. In some circumstances, mother and father wanted to be satisfied that delivery their sons off to Michigan, away from their houses and comparatively confirmed pathways to school and professional hockey, was the appropriate transfer — and a few could not be swayed. In 12 months 1, Mancini stated, about 70 p.c of the gamers the USNTDP recruited wound up signing.
“We had been dropping actually, actually good gamers who had been selecting different pathways,” Mancini stated, “These weren’t simply authentic issues. They had been authentic causes.”
Firstly, there was no set schedule or accomplished services. Gamers who did be a part of would have to be positioned with billet households and enroll in high-school lessons. Mancini in contrast the job to “constructing the airplane and flying it on the similar time.”
By 12 months 2, although, the quantity was nearer to 80 p.c. By 12 months 3, it was near 90. “Rapidly,” Mancini stated, “you had been fielding calls from mother and father and brokers saying, ‘Hey, you could watch my child. It’s essential come right here.'”
By 2000, this system had produced a No. 1 NHL choose, goalie Rick DiPietro. Since, it has produced 4 extra: Erik Johnson in 2006, Patrick Kane in 2007, Matthews in 2016 and Jack Hughes in 2019. In all, 99 NTDP alums have gone on to grow to be first-round picks. That’s elite expertise.
In 2004, with a roster constructed primarily from NTDP gamers, the U.S. gained its first-ever gold medal on the World Junior Championships. It has gained six extra, together with in 2024 and 2025, and this system’s presence on the roster has solely grown. That’s high-end worldwide success.
“It was we (hoped) to compete for a gold medal in occasions. Now the expectations are there,” Kelleher stated. “That is an excellent factor.”
And now, on the first worldwide best-on-best competitors that includes NHL gamers since 2016, the U.S. roster will characteristic 15 NTDP alums, together with the captain (Matthews), alternate captains (Matthew Tkachuk and Charlie McAvoy) and beginning goaltender (Connor Hellebuyck).
“It was every part I wanted,” stated Matt Boldy, a winger for the Minnesota Wild, member of the 4 Nations group and a part of this system from 2017-19. “Skates, ability work, every part. Energy, conditioning, the entire thing. So going there at 16, it meant every part.”
Fast development from exterior conventional hubs
You don’t have to look a lot additional than the 4 Nations roster for proof the Individuals can now draw from all through the nation higher than prior to now.
Whereas Workforce USA’s best-on-best golf equipment have historically been made up solely of gamers from the Three M states — Michigan, Minnesota and Massachusetts — this 12 months’s group options gamers born everywhere in the nation: Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
That’s the results of a demographic shift that features 100,000 extra gamers within the U.S. within the years between 2000 and 2015, together with greater than 50 p.c development in states as widespread as California, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington.
In lots of states, having an NHL group has been a key issue — particularly with groups in these areas successful the Stanley Cup in 9 of the final 20 seasons (2004, 2006, 2007, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2024).
“The NHL golf equipment and the NHL itself, their assist and their focus and the best way they dig in with their communities has been an amazing profit for us,” Kelleher stated.
“Collectively, there’s simply been extra entry to the sport for these children,” Modano added. “You could have a deeper expertise pool because the years have gone on, extra children have progressed within the sport, and now you’re seeing quite a lot of high-end ability and main gamers within the NHL and junior and faculty. It’s wonderful to see now that these numbers have gone up dramatically.”
Within the final three years alone, Mancini stated, USA Hockey has added 36 spots at nationwide participant improvement camps, bringing the entire to 216, “as a result of we appeared round and we realized, ‘My gosh, we’re leaving gamers of their districts (who want this chance).’”
That subsequent wave of expertise is barely simply starting to make inroads into the best ranges, too. A number of the NHL’s latest rising stars are coming from these next-gen U.S. markets, reminiscent of Flames rookie of the 12 months candidate Dustin Wolf (from California), Maple Leafs energy ahead Matthew Knies (Arizona), and Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson (Montana).
USA Hockey’s different improvement paths
In 2009, with the NTDP cooking as a pipeline for turning elite 16-year-olds into elite NHL gamers, USA Hockey launched what it referred to as “the American Improvement Mannequin (ADM),” a framework for serving to gamers attain their full potential, no matter it may be, beginning with “be taught to skate” applications for youngsters below 6.
It boils right down to age-appropriate coaching for gamers and ongoing, research-based training for USA Hockey’s 60,000 registered coaches. A number of the ideas, Kelleher stated, had been developed on the NTDP.
“We stated, ‘Hey, now let’s have a greater system of improvement throughout the nation that everybody can level to as one of the best ways to do that,'” Kelleher stated. “And on the similar time, let’s ensure we deliver extra children into the system that may be uncovered to our sport, to have a possibility to be developed — (whether or not as) a rec league participant, a highschool participant, a Division-I faculty participant or Olympic or Paralympic athletes.”
The objective is not particularly to construct out a bunch of rank-and-file American NHL gamers — however that’s one thing of a byproduct. What has been created, to make use of a popular USA Hockey time period, are “a number of participant pathways.”
Making the NTDP may be the straightest line to the NHL. It is definitely not the one one.
On any given day this NHL season, Mancini stated, there are near 300 American gamers within the NHL. Of these, about 100 got here via the NTDP. 200, in different phrases, didn’t — they performed for NCAA groups, or within the USHL, or at prep faculties or at Minnesota excessive faculties.
“The depth of our participant pool on the elite stage,” Kelleher stated, “is because of the truth that we’ve got quite a lot of completely different choices and variety of completely different locations for gamers to go to be developed.”
The 4 Nations roster is a testomony to that; of the 23 gamers on the preliminary roster, eight took an alternate route, together with Jets winger Kyle Connor. He was lower from the U17 group and performed three seasons within the USHL. As an 18-year-old, after main that league in scoring, he dedicated to the College of Michigan, the place he spent one season earlier than Winnipeg drafted him fifteenth. He was with the Jets by the point he was 19.
Eight years later, he leads the league in objectives amongst American gamers.
“Kyle Connor did not essentially come via the entrance door,” Kelleher stated, “and now he is a celebrity within the NHL.”
The affect of the ADM because it pertains to the nationwide groups is evident throughout tryouts, stated Mancini, now USA Hockey’s assistant govt director of hockey improvement. Within the earliest days of the NTDP, he stated, there might need solely been 20 gamers adequate for him, Jackson, and the remainder of the employees to focus on.
“Now you go to the NTDP tryout camp, they’re bringing 40 gamers,” Mancini stated, “and after the primary few, the place all of us say, ‘These children (are locks),’ it’s arduous to decide on as a result of that is what number of good gamers we’ve got.
“We’re not simply producing extra gamers. We’re producing higher gamers.”
A brand new goalie manufacturing unit
The opposite important enchancment that has helped make the Individuals favorites coming into the 4 Nations is the expertise they’ve in web.
With Russia not participating in worldwide occasions and the Canadians persevering with to battle to develop stars within the crease, the U.S. has a transparent benefit on paper with regards to stopping pucks.
It’s a bunch led by Hellebuyck, a Hart Trophy candidate with the Jets and the consensus greatest goaltender on the earth proper now. The Individuals even have high netminders Jake Oettinger of the Stars and Jeremy Swayman of the Bruins on the roster.
These three rank first, second and thirteenth in NHL wins, respectively, over the previous 4 seasons.
The U.S. additionally left a deep bench at house, with a bunch of goaltenders that will have been within the working for roles on another nation’s roster: Wolf, Thatcher Demko, Joey Daccord, Joseph Woll, Anthony Stolarz, John Gibson, Jonathan Fast and Spencer Knight.
The U.S. has traditionally produced some high quality netminders — led by Ryan Miller, Mike Richter, Tom Barrasso, Tim Thomas and John Vanbiesbrouck — however by no means with this stage of depth in a single technology.
The Individuals have skilled a pointy rise on the place the previous 5 years, particularly, an enchancment not less than partly as a result of NTDP and an elevated deal with goalie improvement at youthful ages.
Like some European nations, USA Hockey has made growing the variety of goalie coaches in minor hockey a central focus. It additionally has set an inner objective to have greater than 10 p.c of all gamers be goaltenders by 2030 and getting extra children attempting the place as an alternative of specializing younger.
Their most formidable objective is for American goalies to play 50 p.c of the minutes within the NHL within the not-so-distant future. (They’re at 23 p.c this season.)
In line with USA Hockey’s director of goalie improvement Steve Thompson, having an improved minor hockey and junior system that feeds into the NCAA has labored wonders, giving their goalies extra time within the crease earlier than turning professional.
All three of the U.S.’s goalies on the 4 Nations got here via the U.S. junior system earlier than taking part in two or three years in faculty. Canada’s three goalies, in distinction, all went straight from junior to professional at a youthful age.
“Simply having that additional three years that the faculty sport has supplied has given a few of our goalies somewhat bit longer to work on their sport,” Thompson stated. “After which once they do get to professional hockey, they’re somewhat bit extra mature, they’re somewhat bit stronger, they have been via the ringer somewhat bit longer to be perhaps somewhat bit mentally stronger. I believe that is been an actual huge success story for our American goaltenders.”
And it’s given them a large benefit on hockey’s largest stage with the 4 Nations right here and the subsequent Winter Olympics solely 12 months away.
“It’s going to be enjoyable to look at,” Modano stated.
(Picture: Vitor Munhoz / 4NFO / World Cup of Hockey by way of Getty Photos)