USA fights, then fights off Canada to establish changing of the guard in international hockey dominance

2 Nations weren’t Face-offing they were fighting off in Montreal last night

The Tkachuk boys set the tone and the USA went on to send Canada to their first best-on-best loss in hockey in 15 years (Canada lost 5-3 to the US in round play during in the 2010 Olympics).

Many watching loved it, some hated it, but no one could ignore the message being sent. The Americans, led unsurprisingly by Matthew Tkachuk, were standing up to establish themselves as the bull of the woods, if you will while in heated enemy territory.

“The message we wanted to send is ‘It’s our time,’” Matthew Tkachuk said. “We’re in a hostile environment, and we wanted to show that we’re not backing down. They’ve had so much success over so many years over there. They’re some of the best players in the world. We felt in this environment it was a good time to do it. It was a lot of fun.”

It seems unlikely that Tkachuk was scratching his legs to mark Montreal as his territory when he gave that quote, which might be all that separates him from the animals. Consider it message received, the rest of the night was a USA defensive masterclass. Connor McDavid slipped through once, using his excessive speed and a great outlet pass from Drew Doughty to find space and generate a breakaway. It would be about the only slip of the night, the Americans put Canada on lock down.

Charlie MacAvoy had it from there, throwing massive hits on McDavid, then practically burying Sidney Crosby behind the net later on. The Canadians were no match for this, no team on Earth would be a match for this.

With the defense putting Canada in check, it was just a matter of time before the American’s offense could take advantage of Canada’s weakness in goal. Jake Guentzel started the party with an innocent enough shot going five-hole on Jordan Binnington. Dylan Larkin scored on the rush a period later. It would be all the offense the US would need to win, with Guentzel tacking on an empty netter for good measure.

It was the type of game where Mike Sullivan only used all-world defenders Zach Werenski and Adam Fox for less than 14 minutes on the night. Jaccob Slavin and Brock Faber each logged over 25. Given styles and team strengths, you gotta leave the sports cars in the garage for this one, pull out the heavy duty machines for a game like this. And how ‘bout that Slavin, on ice for all three American goals on the night (none against), using his stick to effectively stifle, frustrate and neutralize the opposition as much as MacAvoy’s thundering body checks.

It didn’t help Canada that Cale Makar and Shea Theodore were out. Then again, the US didn’t have the services of Quinn Hughes. It also didn’t help that Sidney Crosby didn’t take any faceoffs in this game (he only took four against Sweden the game before) and still has 0 shots on goals in the tournament. Crosby clearly isn’t 100% and that hurts, especially in comparison to seeing what he is up against when the red, white and blue rolls up against them.

The US team is bigger, stronger, tougher than the Canadians, and equipped with way better goaltending. It led to a very visible, very empathic changing of the guard in Montreal on Saturday night as far as who the alphas in international hockey now are. The Canadians have held that mantle for the last generations but they learned there’s a new bull of the woods, he wears a Tkachuk jersey.