Why the World Cup of Hockey, which starts Saturday, is a big deal

— -- TORONTO -- And so we begin.

The first World Cup of Hockey in a dozen years is set to open to all kinds of bells and whistles Saturday in the center of Canada's hockey universe: Toronto.

Eight teams, representing six countries and two continents, and the largest collection of NHL talent ever assembled in one tournament are set to try to put the World Cup of Hockey back on the international hockey radar.

Consider this: Of the 184 players on the eight rosters, 169 played in the NHL last season. Two others, Team North America's Auston Matthews and Finland's Patrik Laine, went Nos. 1 and 2 in last June's draft and are likely to play in the NHL this season.

The players in the tournament, jointly organized by the NHL and the National Hockey League Players' Association, have combined to play 73,299 NHL regular-season games and have a total of 47 Stanley Cup championships to their credit.

The Tampa Bay Lightning leads all NHL teams with 12 players taking part, with representatives on seven of the eight teams. It would have been 13 if Ryan Callahan?hadn't withdrawn from Team USA because of injury. Lightning head coach Jon Cooper is also an associate coach with Team North America.

Speaking of Team North America, it has quickly become the darling of the tournament. Many believe the collection of highly skilled players from Canada and the United States under the age of 24 has the goods to advance to the elimination portion of the tournament.

Team North America features a bevy of players who represent the future of the game, including team captain Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers and Jack Eichel?of the? Buffalo Sabres.?The duo represents the top two picks in the 2015 draft. McDavid, 19, has been hailed as the greatest young talent to join the NHL since Sidney Crosby arrived more than a decade ago.

And though Team North America is young, it does boast a two-time Stanley Cup winner in Brandon Saad of the Columbus Blue Jackets, and goalie? Matt Murray, who backstopped the Pittsburgh Penguins to a Cup win in June.

The tournament will start with two four-team pools in round-robin play (Canada, United States, Czech Republic and Europe make up Group A; Sweden, Finland, Russia and North America are in Group B). The top two teams from each group will advance to the semifinals, with the No. 1 teams playing the second-place teams from the opposite pool. The winners of those one-game semifinals will meet in the best-of-three finals.

Pool play begins Saturday with Team USA taking on Team Europe (3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2), another hybrid team featuring players from non-competing European nations. Team Canada?opens against the Czech Republic on Saturday (8 p.m. on ESPNEWS).

The preliminary round will follow standard NHL regular-season protocol. If a score is tied at the end of regulation, there will be a five-minute, 3-on-3 overtime. If nobody scores in OT, the game will be decided by a shootout. Teams will accumulate two points for a win of any kind and one point for an overtime or shootout loss. Regulation wins are favorable because they will factor into the tiebreaking process used to determine which teams advance to the elimination round in the event teams are tied in points after the three preliminary games.

NHL playoff rules will come into effect in the semifinals and final, with overtime games played 5-on-5 until a resolution, regardless of how long that might take.

Heading into the games, there are plenty of storylines to watch.

The host Canadians will be without Jeff Carter, Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and Duncan Keith, all of whom withdrew because of injury. Guess what? It doesn't matter. The Canadians are loaded, and they are led by Pittsburgh's Crosby, who is coming off his second Stanley Cup run, and Montreal Canadiens netminder Carey Price, who is attempting to return from a core body injury that cost him most of last season.

The biggest decisions facing Team Canada head coach Mike Babcock might be about whom to scratch for each game because one goalie, one defenseman and one forward from each team's 23-man roster will not dress.

The Swedes are as complete a team as there is in the tournament, even though they will be without Henrik Zetterberg and Alexander Steen. The Russians, led by Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin and Crosby's longtime teammate Evgeni Malkin, are explosive.

Team Europe, whose players represent eight European nations not included otherwise, got off to a rocky start before rebounding to win their final pretournament game over Sweden. Europe is noteworthy for, among other things, completing the eighth father-son combination to take part in Canada Cup/World Cup of Hockey competition. Skilled Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl follows his father, Peter, who skated for Germany in the 1996 tournament.

As for Team USA, it's a hard-nosed, veteran group led by 2015-16 NHL scoring champion and MVP Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks. Two-time Stanley Cup champion Jonathan Quick of the Los Angeles Kings will get the start in goal. Team USA, 20 years after its seminal win over Canada in the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, hopes to rebound from a disappointing showing at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.?

Each team played three pretournament games. If the results tell us one thing, it's that no team can be fully counted out of the running. Each squad won at least one game, and none went undefeated.