Team USA's Best Fail In Epic Final Test
In the end, Canada’s best player didn’t miss.
Connor McDavid found an open area in the slot and buried a feed from Mitch Marner to defeat Team USA, 3-2, in overtime on Thursday night in the Championship Game of the Four Nations Face-Off in Boston.
That’s really the whole story of this contrived event that did wonders for the NHL’s bid to grow the game. Team Canada’s top guns were simply better than those from the American squad who at least won’t have to wait long for their next chance to prove their hockey superiority. The league has committed to sending its best players to the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy.
There, Team USA will once again have to find their own responses to McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon, who opened the scoring on Thursday and took home the Tournament MVP trophy. The duo delivered in the clutch while Auston Matthews, who lit the lamp 69 times last season, went goal-less for the Tournament. Despite his primary assists on Team USA’s two scores, Matthews might be haunted by the several times he had the game on his stick in Thursday’s extra session and failed to finish.
Certain other Team USA members whom many expected would lead the way in terms of production in this event were more disappointing. New Jersey’s Jack Hughes went from Matthews’ flank on the top line in last week’s opener to a rotating third liner during Thursday’s contest. Winnipeg’s Kyle Connor, the leading goal scorer among Americans this season, was a healthy scratch for the finale. And when did the game of Rangers defenseman Adam Fox, the 2021 Norris Trophy winner, fall off a cliff?
Fox and Hughes were each on the ice for Canada’s game-tying goal by Sam Bennett with six minutes remaining in the second period and McDavid’s OT winner. Their ice time totals reflected their general ineffectiveness—Hughes saw the ninth-most minutes among the team’s forwards (and it probably would have been less if Matthew Tkachuk’s reported groin injury hadn’t flared up mid-game and limited him to 6:47) while Fox’s 17:05 were the fewest among the six American defensemen.
For Hughes, 23, this was a harsh learning experience, as he was limited to one assist in the Tournament’s four games. Devils fans are so used to his leaving opponents in the dust with his skating; in these best-on-best events, Hughes’ speed doesn’t stand out as much, particularly when instructed by Team USA Head Coach Mike Sullivan to play an up-and-down game from the wing.
Hughes rarely got opportunities to lead a rush or even enter the offensive zone with speed, his bread-and-butter. Of course, he couldn’t help but create quality looks for himself and his teammates from whenever he found the puck—NaturalStatTrick.com credited him with a team-high three high danger scoring chances on Thursday—but he had nothing to show for it, and that matters most in short tournaments at this level.
Fox’s tournament mirrored that of his up-and-down regular season club. When he’s on, few defensemen around the league walk the blue line and get pucks through to the net better. He had two shots on goal in the four games. Defensively, I thought he wasn’t properly positioned as Team Canada transitioned to set up the Bennett goal and then he and Matthews both chased Marner into the corner while McDavid broke free. Pick your culprit with caution.
Again, the team whose best players played better won, because it turned out that the war of attrition between the two hockey powers was somewhat of a dead heat. Canada’s banged-up blue line got solid minutes out of Thomas Harley while defenseman Jake Sanderson, in for injured Charlie McAvoy, gave Team USA a 2-1 lead in the second period. Up front, Team Canada captain Sidney Crosby played through an injury that allegedly made it painful for him to shoot the puck while Matthew Tkachuk gutted it out through some early shifts, including the one where brother Brady tied the score at 1-1 late in the first period.
The goaltending battle was also fairly even, though that was considered a win for Team Canada given the reputations of the two netminders coming into the Tournament. All three goals that beat Team USA’s Connor Hellebuyck were roofed into a corner; otherwise, he fared well against a Canadian squad that posted a 58% share in high danger scoring chances, per NST, Meanwhile, Jordan Binnington came up big in the overtime when desperately needed to extend the contest.
Team Canada, though, sports the best player in the world, who, despite his admission of a substandard overall performance, showed why the U.S. is not quite ready to take the mantle of the best team.