NHL grants Canada special exception before clash with USA.

Saturday night's highly anticipated clash between Team Canada and Team USA at the National Hockey League's Four Nations Face-Off tournament will be must watch television for most hockey fans in North America and, as if there wasn't already enough buzz coming into this one, now there is a major controversy that will only add more fuel to the fire prior to puck drop.

On Friday, the NHL and National Hockey League Players Association officially granted Canada their request to bring in an additional defensemen in spite of the fact that rosters had to be locked in by 5 p.m. EST on Monday evening. That defenseman will be Dallas Stars standout Thomas Harley, and Harley is being brought in due to the fact that there was a real possibility that Canada could have entered the game with only 5 healthy defensemen.

Both the NHL and NHLPA insisted on team's in the tournament being limited to just 23 players, but that decision appears to have bit them in the rear already with an exception now having to be made for one team in the tournament. This of course brings up questions of potential bias and/or favoritism, something that could have easily been avoided if each nation had been allowed to bring enough players to account for any potential injuries that may occur.

Thankfully it sounds like this won't have any impact on Saturday night's game with Harley expected to remain on the sidelines, so there won't be any room for complaining when it comes to this exception potentially impacting the outcome of the tournament.

That being said the tournament won't end on Saturday night and if Harley does play there will be some legitimate questions to be asked about how the NHL should avoid any perception of favoritism or bias in the future.