MONTREAL – After the booing and the political theatre played out they turned to hockey. Well, almost.
Three fights including one off the opening faceoff and all within the first nine seconds of the game were required to clear the air as Team Canada and Team USA squared off in the first of what could turn into a two-game standoff here at the 4Nations Face-Off best-on-best tournament.
While the early fireworks involved both squads, the rest of the game was all about the U.S.A. as they choked out a 3-1 victory giving Canada almost no scoring opportunities over the final two periods.
The Americans were superior in executing their game play cutting off the middle of the ice and turning Canada into a perimeter team for the bulk of the game.
Connor Hellebuyck played like the best goalie in the world and stopped all but one of the 26 shots he faced.
Canada’s Jordan Binnington was average allowing two goals on shots which were not unstoppable. Hellebuyck was the better goalie on the night.
U.S. coach Mike Sullivan laid out a stingy schematic for his team and they played it to perfection.
“I thought the group defended well,” center Jack Eichel said. “I thought we broke the puck out cleanly. And, when there were breakdowns, I think we were there to support each other and put fires out. So, like I said, tons of credit to the group. Our goaltender played great. There is a lot of credit to go around, and it was just a selfless effort.”
Canadian bench boss Jon Cooper constantly tweaked his lines in the second half of the game trying to find some offense but came up empty. Binnington has won once and lost once. Cooper has VGK goalie Adin Hill in his stable. He’ll have a decision to make on whether to stick with Binnington in Boston or look to Hill on Monday.
The heavily Canadian flavored crowd booed the Star Spangled Banner throughout the singing of the American anthem just as they did earlier in the week when the U.S. played Finland.
American forward Matthew Tkachuk expressed disdain for the booing after it happened the first time and he was less impressed on Saturday.
Prior to the opening draw, Tkachuk said something to Canadian winger Brandon Hagel and as soon as the puck hit the ice they dropped their sticks and gloves to fight with just two seconds off the game clock.
After those two were ushered to the penalty box, USA’s Brady Tkachuk and Canada’s Sam Bennett had words prior to the next faceoff and set to scrapping at three seconds into the period.
Canada’s Colton Parayko and U.S. winger J.T. Miller waited until the nine-second mark before they began throwing punches at one another to conclude the first period fisticuffs.
Canada got on the board first as Connor McDavid burned past U.S. defenseman Charlie McAvoy and roofed a backhander behind Hellebuyck.
It was all U.S.A. after that as they scored three unanswered. Jake Guentzel scored on a perfect feed from Golden Knights center Eichel and Dylan Larkin beat Binnington from the top of the circle to make it 2-1.
Canada failed to threaten the rest of the way and Guentzel finalized the score sheet with an empty-netter.
The win sends the Americans to the final next Thursday in Boston with two regulation victories for six points.
“It’s going to be awesome,” Eichel said. “I have a lot of memories in that arena and just to have the home crowd and be somewhere that is so special to me. It’s going to be great. I’m really looking forward to it.”
Canada, Finland and Sweden all have two points making Monday’s doubleheader in Boston all important. Canada plays Finland while Sweden takes on the U.S. juggernaut. Read about the tiebreaking procedures here.
Earlier in the day, Finland gamely fought back to force overtime and then beat Sweden on a Mikael Granlund sweeper that fooled Linus Ulmark between the pads.
Finland earned two points for the extra time win while the Swedes suffered their second OT loss with each being worth a single point.
Canada was missing defenseman Cale Makar who was out due to illness but Cooper hoped he would be available for Monday. Thomas Harley was added to Canada’s roster for the game to replace Makar.
