BOSTON — After the electrical begin to USA’s round-robin win over Canada on the Bell Centre in Montreal on Saturday night time, the hockey world ought to anticipate an much more epic recreation between the 2 powerhouses battle within the 4 Nations Face-Off championship recreation Thursday night time at TD Backyard.
Listed below are 4 knee-jerk ideas concerning the USA-Canada 4 Nations title bout:
USA Seems To Be Banged-Up
Workforce USA is the favourite to win the trophy and the medals, per FanDuel Sportsbook, however with the standing of a number of gamers unknown, that might change over the subsequent couple of days.
Charlie McAvoy, Auston Matthews and Matthew Tkachuk all missed USA’s solely loss within the round-robin on Monday night time to Sweden with varied aliments. Brady Tkachuk performed on 1:55 throughout 5 shifts within the first interval and left the sport after crashing into the goalpost.
USA coach Mike Sullivan didn’t present a lot of an replace after the loss, stating solely that McAvoy and Matthews have been each coping with upper-body accidents.
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If any of the 4 stars for USA can’t go on Thursday, it may drastically change the American’s recreation plan towards Canada.
Canada’s Stars Confirmed Why They’re Elite
Three of one of the best gamers in hockey confirmed up for Canada within the staff’s 5-3 victory over Finland to advance to the championship recreation.
Connor McDavid opened the scoring for Canada for the second straight recreation, whereas Nathan MacKinnon added two tallies, adopted by Sidney Crosby’s empty web aim to seal the victory.
“You might have one of the best gamers on the earth doing issues they’re most likely not accustomed to. All for the advantage of our staff profitable hockey video games,” Canada coach Jon Cooper stated. “It was a 200-foot recreation. You’ve acquired McDavid, MacKinnon and Crosby, all these guys dumping pucks and entering into after them. It was a approach we needed to play to win this recreation, and we did it.”
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If Canada performs the identical sort of recreation they performed towards Finland on Thursday night time, USA will definitely need to be on the high of its recreation to cease them.
Goaltending Is Key
Connor Hellebuyck has been close to good within the two video games he received for USA. The Winnipeg Jets goaltender leads all goalies within the match with a 1.00 goals-against common and a .957 save proportion.
Throughout the ice, Jordan Binnington has been shaky at instances for Canada. Within the loss to the US, Binnington gave up two targets he ought to have had towards Jake Guentzel and Dylan Larkin. The St. Louis Blues netminder is posting a 2.60 goals-against common and .892 save proportion in three video games.
With each USA and Canada having generational abilities on their roster, the championship recreation actually will come all the way down to protection and goaltending.
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The query is, which goalie is as much as stealing a recreation for his or her nation?
Puck drop for the USA-Canada 4 Nations closing is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET from TD Backyard on Thursday. The sport will air on ESPN.
