Canada needs its scoring depth to step up in 4 Nations final
Team Canada is ready for redemption on Thursday night, when they’ll hit the ice at TD Garden in Boston for the 4 Nations Face-Off final against Team USA.
After a wild opening period during their 3-1 loss in their round-robin matchup, which included a beautiful goal by Connor McDavid to open the scoring, the Americans were able to shut down Canada’s high-powered offence. If Canada wants to come out on top and win the 4 Nations Face-Off, they’ll need to do a better job at finding the back of the net.
Several of Canada’s top-nine forwards have had a very quiet tournament, as goals have been hard to come by throughout the last two weeks. Pucks on net, traffic in front, pouncing on rebounds, the Canadians will need to simplify their approach, if they stand any chance against USA.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli dove into what to expect leading into one of the most anticipated hockey games in history, and what exactly Canada needs, in order to come out on top over the Americans.
Yaremchuk: So, keys to victory for Team Canada in this one, I think is going to be your power needs to be better than USA’s power. There’s strong goaltending, and it’s low scoring, and it’s been good defensive hockey for the United States. For Canada, how can you get to four goals tonight? What is your path to beating Connor Hellebuyck four times, because with Jordan Binnington on the other side, I don’t think you can go into this with a game plan of – ‘let’s win this game 3-2, or win 2-1’. You need four.
Seravalli: Right, and that was maybe the one unwritten thing the last time these two teams met last Saturday. Which was even as Canada was pushing, pushing, pushing in the third period, with Jon Cooper throwing everything at the wall, different line combinations to find success, that there was still kind of this uneasy feeling if your Canada of – ‘hey does Jordan Binnington have another squeaker left in him’, that might put the game out of reach.
That didn’t happen and it ended up being an empty-netter. But, none the less, you can talk about Jordan Binnington all you want, and the soft goals he’s given up, but the story of Saturday night was that this Canadian attack, that has some of the players we’ve mentioned, and we’re all on the ice collectively together at the same time for various portions of that third period, that they only scored once.
Not to take it a step further, but in addition to that, yes the stars need to be fantastic, of course, but your bottom-six is allowed to score. That’s allowed within the rules. Where is the extra contribution going to come from? Who in that bottom-six? Is it Mitch Marner, is it Brad Marchand? Is it Sam Bennett?
Sam Reinhart has had a super quiet tournament, and this is a guy that scored the Stanley Cup clinching goal not that long ago. So, who is going to step up for Canada if it isn’t one of the stars. Because, you might need both.
For complete coverage of the USA-Canada 4 Nations Face-Off final, and all the very latest from around the NHL, watch the full episode below.