It is absolutely criminal that we were robbed of international, best-on-best hockey for nearly ten years. 

What a game, what a result, and as always, it becomes about the Leafs. 

Your 4 Nations edition of the Game in 10:

1.    The game not only started with a goal, but the goal was a tic-tac-toe passing play between Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, and Nathan MacKinnon. For Canada and its fans, it was perfect and beautiful. The passing, timing, and spacing were all so perfect, and they made scoring look about as easy as it gets, capitalizing on a William Nylander penalty to start the game.

2.   That was understandably a huge start to the game for Canada to get the team and crowd going, and they rode an early wave of momentum but didn’t double their lead until 6:45 left in the first period on a good defense-to-offense play.

Filip Forsberg got the puck in the middle of the ice, where Josh Morrissey and Colton Parayko paired up to disrupt him from crossing center cleanly, which led to a turnover. Parayko quickly banked a pass off the boards to Seth Jarvis, who made a quick heads-up pass to get it quickly through Victor Hedman to Brayden Point in stride. Point and Brad Marchand went down on a 2v1, making no mistake.

Point sold that he would shoot before sliding it over, and Filip Gustavsson didn’t even bother trying to make a save as Marchand put it into the empty net. 

3.   There were spurts in the game when the high-end talent on the ice clicked and was simply on another level, and there were a few times when the players looked like they hadn’t played hockey together. Canada’s defensemen quickly defaulted to going off the glass and out instead of making crisp outlet passes. It takes time to build that familiarity and chemistry on the ice, and throwing a bunch of players together — even elite ones — takes time.

It was naturally even worse for a Sweden team that had the second-best roster on the ice. Canada largely carried play for the period, and Sweden went shotless for the first 17:16 of the opening frame. They couldn’t move up ice at all, and while Canada wasn’t always clean when they got it over center, their skill took over to create opportunities. Even still, Canada only registered seven shots on net by the end of the period (21 shot attempts total, though).

4.    After coming out with a ton of energy in the first period, the second period was a lot sleepier for Canada. Halfway through the game, Canada fired a total of 11 shots on net, and their lead was cut in half.

Sweden slowly sucked the life out of the game, and Canada wasn’t doing much of anything to break through their checking or spark some life. The Travis Konecny line had one good shift finishing hits, and MacKinnon was electric every time he touched the puck, but the rest of the team was disjointed and couldn’t get anything going.

As is usually the case when you play with a fire, a bounce goes against you. Sweden generated some possession in the Canada zone and worked it up and around the point, leading to a Jonas Brodin shot. It’s tough to tell whether it knuckled, deflected off Sam Reinhart immediately, or whether Rickard Rakell got a piece of it, but it fooled Binnington, going right by his ear and in.

5.   Sweden got some life after their goal, and Nylander started to put together a few of his best shifts of the game (Cale Makar deflected a Nylander shot off the rush, and he threw another dangerous shot to the net). Mattias Ekholm also teed up a slapshot that Binnington clearly didn’t see and just guessed on, but it missed the net.

As Sweden was applying pressure, Nylander, who played a role in two of Canada’s goals, turned it over in the offensive zone, leading to a Canada rush where Crosby drove wide before spinning and finding Mark Stone as a trailer. Stone one-timed the puck in through Gustavsson’s five-hole to restore Canada’s two-goal lead.

Canada probably didn’t deserve to tie the period — they were out-attempted 26-14 — but a flash of Sid brilliance kept Canada’s insurance intact going into the third.

6.   Early in the second period, Shea Theodore also got injured and immediately went for X-rays — usually a bad sign. Not only was Canada down to five defensemen for the rest of the night, but we later learned that they are not allowed to call up any player on an emergency basis for the rest of the tournament. This is the roster. It’s an incredibly dumb rule, and hopefully, we don’t see any team forced to play five defensemen because of it.

Here’s wishing Theodore a speedy recovery, whether for this tournament or the NHL season. You know Vegas won’t scoff at an opportunity to take advantage of a player on LTIR.

Update: It looks like there may be a route to bringing in emergency relief, if needed.

7.  That proved critical right away. Under two minutes into the third period, Sweden again pulled within one on another shot from distance. Erik Karlsson made a nice play to weave through some traffic in the neutral zone and lay the puck off to Adrian Kempe, who flew into the Canada zone with speed and ripped a shot off the rush from the top of the circle in the middle ice that beat Binnington cleanly.

It’s a bad goal for Binnington to let in after several misplays from Canada. From Anthony Cirelli performing a drive-by on Karlsson at center ice to Drew Doughty backing right off with bad gap control (allowing Kempe to walk in with speed untouched) to Bennington letting the puck go through him, it was poor all-around.

8.   Canada generated some pushes after Sweden pulled within one, but truthfully, it felt like a ticking time bomb for Sweden to tie this game. Not even halfway through the period, they did just that by capitalizing on a bad icing from Parayko that was completely unnecessary; he could have just chipped it out.

At that point, the forward line and defense pairing were already on for a minute, making the faceoff crucial. Cirelli not only lost it, but both Konecny and Morrissey went through and lost the battle, and Konecny ended up on the ice, opening things right up for Sweden. Lucas Raymond pulled in the defenders by faking a shot, sliding it over to Jesper Bratt, who passed it through to Eriksson Ek. He had so much time in front that he didn’t even need to one-time the puck, settling the pass down and calmly putting it over the sprawling Binnington.

It was a nice passing play by Sweden, who won the initial battle, had some time and space open up, and made no mistake.

9.   With a tie game and half a period to go, we saw action both ways. Filip Gustavsson made an early candidate for save of the tournament, robbing Devon Toews on a nice passing play with McDavid and Mitch Marner. Nylander broke up a Marchand chance in the slot with a good backcheck, and then Morrissey took a penalty where the best chance may have been an odd-man rush led by Marner; he delayed to allow Cale Makar to join up ice, but he ripped it wide.

In the final minute, both teams threw dangerous point shots that didn’t get to the net, setting up an overtime period. For Nylander specifically, he was dangerous at times, and he had rough defensive shifts at times. He lost a battle off the second faceoff of the game and took a penalty right away. He had some good looks and also gave the puck away leading to a goal. Sweden eventually tried loading up a line with Nylander, Pettersson, and Forsberg, and they created some dangerous shifts toward the end of the game.

10.   We could write a novel on the overtime period. There were so many chances both ways, including a Nylander breakaway pass cut out by Hagel on what should have been a too-many-men penalty on Canada and then him later losing it on a 2v1. MacKinnon was dangerous every time he touched the puck in overtime and looked off McDavid on a 2v1 that felt like it would be game.

Binnington made a few much-needed, big saves as well. But when it was all said and done, it was Marner scoring the overtime winner, taking a drop pass from Crosby in the neutral zone (his third assist of the night; he was game MVP), walking in with speed, flashing a deceptive inside-outside move, and releasing it mid-stride to go far side and in to end the game. 

It’s a nice cherry on top of the performance for Marner, who I thought got better as the game went along, finishing with the second-most ice time among forwards behind only McDavid (21:06). He engaged physically and started creating offense as the night progressed (the Toews chance, the Makar chance, etc.). He had a nice moment shorthanded, and he was rightfully double-shifted for roughly the last five minutes of the period before starting overtime with McDavid and Makar. And he called game in OT.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights: Team Canada 4 vs. Team Sweden 3 (OT)

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