On Monday, the 4 Nations Face-Off relocated to Boston for the final three games. The action in Beantown began with a loser-go-home match between Canada and Finland. The Canadians jumped out to a 4-goal lead, but the Finns made things interesting with 3 goals in the third period, including two within 23 seconds in the final two minutes. A Sidney Crosby empty-netter sealed the victory for Canada, and clinched their spot in the final.
With Thursday’s matchup set and Sweden eliminated, both USA and Sweden did some lineup shuffling prior to puck drop. Samuel Ersson of the Flyers became the third goalie to play for the Swedes in as many games. Rickard Rakell and Mika Zibanejad fell victim to the same bug that had already hit the Swedish locker room, so Leo Carlsson and Rasmus Andersson made their tournament debut.
On the American side, starting goalie Connor Hellebuyck was given the night to rest up, and Matthew Tkachuk was scratched as well to rest a lower-body injury suffered in the third period against Canada, but with the assurance that he’d be ready to play on Thursday. Jake Oettinger got the start in net and Chris Kreider dressed in place of Tkachuk. Defenseman Charlie McAvoy also got the night off (nursing an upper body issue), so Jake Sanderson made his debut. Finally, captain Auston Matthews was a late scratch with upper body soreness, leaving Mike Sullivan with just 11 forwards and 6 defensemen.
First Period
The US surrendered the first goal in each of their first two games, but in this one they drew first blood and they did in the first minute. Our guy Zach Werenski made the kind of play we’re used to in Columbus. He carried the puck into the offensive zone with speed and put a shot on the pads of Ersson. Kreider was in the right spot to tap in the rebound.
That makes it 5 points in 3 games for Werenski, tying him with Sidney Crosby for the points lead in the tournament.
The Americans got a scare after Brady Tkachuk took a hard crash into Ersson and the net. After another shift he went down the tunnel to get checked out.
Our old friend Gus Nyquist tied it up for the Swedes later in the period. He deflected an Erik Karlsson shot juuust enough to throw off Oettinger.
Tkachuk returned to the bench right after this goal, but only played one more shift in the period.
The US had the edge in possession for most of the period, but the Swedes took the lead in the final minute, on an unreal shot through traffic by Jesper Bratt. I’m not sure Oettinger had any chance to see the shot.
Second and Third Periods
Vincent Trocheck appeared to be nursing his arm at the end of the first, but fortunately was back for hte Second. Brady Tkachuk, however, was ruled out for the rest of the game. Not to be outdone, referee Wes McCauley also left the game with injury after the first intermission.
The second period was even and back and forth, with neither team being able to solve the goalies.
In the third period, the US went back to controlling possession, and they were able to generate chances. They hit at least 5 posts in this game. When they got shots on net, Ersson was outstanding.
Oettinger was pulled with two minutes left and Werenski was the the one defenseman out there with five forwards, but that unit wasn’t able to get the equalizer.
Final Thoughts
Werenski earned the third star tonight. Very cool, and well deserved.
It was frustrating that the US couldn’t solve Ersson, but you could see that even with a team this skilled, playing with 10 forwards for most of the game took its toll. The guys looked gassed, and I suspect they weren’t giving 100% so they could save some energy for Thursday.
Hopefully two days off is enough for all of the injured Americans to be good to go in the championship game. Canada will have Cale Makar back, who they missed terribly in the first meeting on Saturday.
With Matthews and the Tkachuks out, I wanted to see a lot more from guys like Jack Hughes and Kyle Connor. They had to play more minutes tonight and yet were fairly invisible.
Credit to Sweden for playing with pride tonight. They can leave with their heads held high after going out with a win. They’re also the only team in the tournament that was undefeated in regulation.
Final Standings (regulation win – overtime win – overtime loss – regulation loss):
- United States (2-0-0-1, 6 points)
- Canada (1-1-0-1, 5 points)
- Sweden (1-0-2-0, 5 points)
- Finland (0-1-0-2, 2 points)
Up Next
Thursday night at 8 PM EST on ESPN, it’s USA vs. Canada 2.0 for the tournament championship, this time in front of an American crowd in Boston.