DETROIT >> The announcement was expected and not surprising.

Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond has been playing great hockey this entire season, so it wasn’t a shock when Sweden on Wednesday named Raymond to its roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament.

Raymond scored two more goals Tuesday in a 3-2 overtime loss in Boston. Raymond leads the Wings with 18 assists and 27 points and has scored seven goals in the last seven games. He also has a point in eight consecutive games.

Few players around the NHL are playing any better, so he’ll be a key player for the United States, Canada and Finland to stop in the tournament in Montreal and Boston on Feb. 12-20.

There are no Wings on Finland’s roster, which also was announced Wednesday afternoon. The rosters for the U.S. and Canada will be announced at 6:30 p.m. on TNT, with Dylan Larkin and Alex DeBrincat (U.S.) and Cam Talbot (Canada) possible selections.

When talking about the possibility of participating in the tournament earlier this week, Raymond was humbled by the opportunity.

“It’s a huge honor,” said Raymond, who has represented the hockey-mad country of Sweden at the world juniors tournament and the world championships. “You grow up playing for the junior national team and now a couple of world championships and you see how much it means to the fans, the Swedish hockey fans at home. Even though this isn’t going to be in Sweden, it’s going to be big back home for sure.

“It’s just fun in a lot of aspects of it. It’s going to be real good for growing the game as well.”

What makes hockey fans salivate at the prospects of watching this tournament is the fact it’ll be the first best-against-best tournament since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. With a new generation of extraordinary young talent such as Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar for Canada; Auston Matthews and Matthew Tkachuk for the U.S.; Aleksander Barkov (Finland) and Raymond, this has the potential for breathtaking hockey.

“The first time in a long time where all the best players in the world are playing for their countries in a tournament,” Raymond said. “This will be exciting. (World Cup) was probably some of the most fun hockey I’ve ever watched, (The 4 Nations) is going to be a good event.”

The only disappointment is there will be only four countries competing.

Russia’s war with the Ukraine has left Russia out of the mix of possibly playing. Tournament organizers decided to leave Czechia out, and countries like Germany, Switzerland and Denmark, though strong in spots, simply don’t have the rosters to compete in what was decided to be an NHL players-only event.

“It’s a little disappointing,” Raymond said of limiting event to only four hockey-playing countries. “There’s probably a lot more stuff going on that we can’t control. You always want to see every one of the top players (competing) in a tournament like this, but this will be a great set up. Two great cities in Montreal and Boston, so that’ll be a lot of fun, and it’s a short tournament.

“Every player, every team has good players. It’ll basically come down to having a good run real quick.”