David Pastrnak and his Czechia teammates made a strong case at this year’s IIHF World Championship that they were snubbed from next February’s 4 Nations Face-Off.
After knocking off Switzerland in the gold-medal game with a 2-0 win, Pastrnak took to social media to make sure everyone knew it.
The Boston Bruins forward captioned a post of himself posing with the trophy: “Maybe Four Nation invite now?”
The 28-year-old All-Star powered his home country to the championship, breaking a scoreless tie in the third period of the gold-medal game. It was his first point of the tournament, playing in his fourth game after joining the Czechia squad late due to the Bruins’ second-round playoff run.
Pastrnak has been vocal about the NHL leaving Czechia out of the newly introduced tournament.
“It’s a huge disappointment,” Pastrnak told Boston.com’s Conor Ryan in February. “I don’t know much I can say. Definitely not happy about it. I understand that it’s a quick turnaround. It’s next year. They probably didn’t have much time to make it a bigger tournament.
“But Czech isn’t there. So it’s always a lot of players left out, so I’m not gonna watch the tournament, to be honest. So just happy that the Olympics got accepted. Yeah, (it) definitely stings a little bit.”
The 4 Nations Face-Off includes Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States, leaving Pastrnak and other top players without a spot to play in the tournament.
Pastrnak did say that he’s looking forward to the chance to represent his country at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
“I’m so pumped,” he said in February. “I was open about it with you guys this whole time. Obviously very frustrating for me, I missed two of them already. So looking forward to — I’ll be 30, I hope I make the team. But I’m super excited and pumped that the deal got done.”