One member of the Tampa Bay Lightning kicked things off with his fists, while another Bolt ended it by putting the puck in the empty net. On a highly-charged evening, Team USA defeated Canada for the first time in more than a decade as the Americans punched their ticket to the 4 Nations Face-Off final with a 3-1 victory. Jake Guentzel scored twice, while Dylan Larkin had the game-winning goal with Connor Hellebuyck stopped 25 of 26 shots.
With the crowd at a fever pitch to start the game, Brandon Hagel and Matthew Tkachuk brought a little of the Florida rivalry to the international stage as they dropped their gloves and traded blows two seconds into the game. Matthew’s brother, Brady, wasn’t going to be left out of the fun, so he challenged Sam Bennett to a fight right after play started again. Boxing has a rich history of trilogies (go watch Gatti vs. Ward for a prime example) so Colton Parayko and JT Miller went at it six seconds after the Bennett/Tkachuk tilt.
With Saturday Night Fights out of the way, the two teams got down to the art of hockey. The game was exactly what the promoters and the league had hoped it would be. Conor McDavid opened the scoring at the 5:31 mark of the first period simply by being Conor McDavid. He picked up a pass in stride and split Zach Werenski and Charlie McAvoy before backhanding the puck past Hellebuyck.
Five minutes later, Team USA would answer with their own transition goal. Jack Eichel created a turnover in the Americans’ zone and rushed up the ice. As the Canadian defense began to collapse on him, he fed Guentzel the puck, and the Bolt beat Jordan Binnington cleanly with a wrist shot.
It settled into a game of missed opportunities and tight defense and more than a pinch of physicality (the teams combined for 63 hits on the night). The score remained knotted at one until the 13:33 mark. Again, it started with a turnover in the US zone as Matt Boldy picked off a pass from Sidney Crosby. The Wild defenseman bumped a pass up to Dylan Larkin, who took off on a two-on-one with JT Miller. The Red Wings captain called his own shot and beat Binnington, who finished the night with 20 saves, with his shot to give Team USA the lead.
The US defense was up to the task, and their staunch play in the zone drained the life out of the crowd. They held the Canadians to just eight shots on goal in the final period, and Guentzel finished things off with the empty net tally with just over 80 seconds left.
With the win, Team USA snapped a 15-year losing streak to Team Canada in “best-on-best” competitions featuring NHL players. The last time the red, white, and blue defeated the red and white was in February of 2010 during Olympic group play. The win also ended Sidney Crosby’s 26-game winning streak in international play.
With the win, Team USA locked up the top spot in the standings with six points and will be in the final. Their opponent will be determined by Monday’s games. With Finland upsetting Sweden in overtime earlier in the day on Saturday, the other three teams all have two points. Finland will face Canada on Monday with the United States taking on Sweden.
