Connor McDavid took to the ice in his Team Canada threads on Monday as he and the rest of his 4 Nations Face-Off teammates skated together for the first time.
The festivities for this year’s mid-season international tournament began with a day full of practices and media availabilities out at the Montreal Canadiens’ practice facility in Brossard, Quebec. With that, we got some interesting insights into how Team Canada will look when their tournament begins on Wednesday night in Montreal.
There had been a lot of talk about how head coach Jon Cooper would handle his line combinations and on the first day of practice, he had McDavid skating with Mitch Marner of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Sam Reinhart of the Florida Panthers.
“You’ve got speed, you’ve got brains, and you’ve got a guy who can shoot the puck in the net,” Cooper said when asked what he likes about his top forward line.
It’s hard to argue with any combination of players because Canada’s roster is so loaded, but I was a little bit surprised to not see an elite puck retriever put on McDavid’s wing. Someone who can push hard on the forecheck and create space for McDavid.
Still, putting a 50-goal winger in Sam Reinhart on one side and one of the smartest players in the league in Mitch Marner on the other should create a pretty dynamic line for Team Canada.
That trio could be very dangerous and they actually might not even draw the toughest assignments. That’s because the other line that skated in top-six red jerseys at practice featured Nathan MacKinnon, Sidney Crosby, and Mark Stone. That’s the kind of stuff that would give even the best defenders in the world nightmares.
There was legitimate fear that Sidney Crosby would be forced to miss this tournament altogether after he sustained an upper-body injury earlier in the week. He’s here and he looked to be in perfect shape during the team’s practice.
Earlier in the week when he practiced with the Penguins it was reported that he wasn’t shooting pucks. I can confirm he was ripping shots during Canada’s practice today.
Even though McDavid and Crosby won’t start the tournament on the same line as each other, they will get a chance to play alongside each other on the teams’ top powerplay unit. It’s an embarrassment of riches for Cooper and his staff as they had the two generational stars playing with MacKinnon, Reinhart and Cale Makar.
St. Albert product Colton Parayko was tasked with being on the penalty kill side of things during practice and even he couldn’t help but chuckle when he was asked about that group of five players getting to play together.
“That’s quite the unit,” said Parayko. “It’s a lot of speed, a lot of skill, a lot of hockey knowledge, a lot of everything. I’m looking forward to watching them build as the tournament goes on and just dominate.”
Those five players were committed to getting on the same page as well. Not only did they stick together for the entire ten-minute special teams portion of Canada’s practice, but they came back together once all their teammate had left the ice at the end of practice and continued working on plays and talking through different scenarios.
The commitment was impressive and honestly, being here and listening to all the players talk about how excited they are for this tournament and how much it means to them to be back playing best on best hockey has increased my own personal level of excitement for this tournament.
Canada kicks things off on Wednesday night with a matchup against Team Sweden, which features two of McDavid’s teammates: Viktor Arvidsson and Mattias Ekholm.
I had a chance to ask Ekholm about having to go up against the three-time Hart Trophy winner.
“I think I’m living in denial right now,” laughed Ekholm. “It’s going to be interesting. I’ve gone up against him before I got to Edmonton but he’s a great player. I play him in practice every day, so I’ve seen it first-hand. Obviously, he’s not the only one that’s good on that team so it’s going to be a challenge for us overall.”
I also asked him if he would be the one to get the matchup against his teammate.
“It’ll be interesting to see how that pans out,” Ekholm said. “I want to win and he’s wired the same way so we won’t be friends out there but I’m sure afterwards we can hopefully have a laugh about it.”
As for offering some advice to his fellow Swedish defensemen, Ekholm didn’t think he’d be able to help much.
“That’s the beauty of him, right?” Ekholm added. “I don’t think he has any patterns or anything where you can say ‘Play him like this and you’ll be good.’ I really don’t have advice. You just have to be on your toes at all time and don’t end up in a foot race against him.”
For Canada, they’re concerned about starting strong because one loss in a tournament that’s structured like this will drastically hurt your chances of making the final. Wednesday night should feature two teams playing a very intense style of hockey. Everyone involved recognizes how important that game is, even if it’s just the first of the tournament.
