The international best-on-best championship game the hockey world has spent the better part of a decade waiting for will go down tonight in Boston (8:00 p.m. EST, Sportsnet/TVA Sports).
Game Day Quotes
Brad Marchand on the challenge presented by this Team USA lineup:
They are by far the best that I’ve played. No disrespect to the previous teams, but with the way the game has evolved in the last 10 years, some of the players on their team will be some of the best to ever play the game of hockey.
They embody a team that competes at the highest level. They have everything. They check well. They play physical. They have incredible talent. The defensemen on their team can all skate. They’re all a good size. Their goaltending is obviously incredible.
They don’t have any weaknesses. Their skill level is incredible to watch. When you look at that team, there is nothing wrong with it. It is definitely the best team I’ve ever played against.
Marchand on the level of hockey on display in this tournament:
The guys have gotten so good in the last nine years. The pace has elevated so much. It is incredible to see the speed and the talent of the players these days.
Fans really got to witness that, and they really loved it. You’ve seen what it has done in the last week for hockey and the media attention it has gotten.
It doesn’t matter when you have the tournament or how you do it. When you get the most competitive guys in the league on the ice together, it will rise to another level. When you are playing for your country, you do whatever it takes to win.
It has been an incredible experience.
Marchand on how this game compares to Game 7s in the Stanley Cup playoffs:
Personally, I think it is harder to win these tournaments than it is to win a Stanley Cup. You have 10 or 15 years of opportunity, usually, for a lot of the guys that play on these teams. For the last 10 years, there have been two opportunities, and in the last 12 or 14 — whatever it has been — there have been three.
These opportunities are so few and far between. Moving forward, it is going to be a little bit different, but it is hard to understand the importance of these games for Canadians. It is what you dream about it. It is the highest level you can play at for any player in the league — any Canadian, any American, and any player at all. It is a whole other level.
It is a game that everybody is going to get up for and be ready for on both teams.
Marchand on the team’s confidence in Jordan Binnington between the pipes:
He’s awesome. He is such a competitor. That is the biggest thing. You see the way he focuses. He has the drive and confidence to want to be the best. He has the confidence you want in a goalie.
I had this conversation with him the other night. When you have a goalie who has the confidence he does, it gives the entire group confidence. You feed off of that. It gives you a sense of calmness. It bleeds throughout the lineup.
It has been incredible to have him back there. Some of the saves he has made throughout this tournament will be watched on replays for years and years. Awesome to play with him.
Mitch Marner on the news that President Trump called the American team this morning:
Cool. I got nothing else.
Drew Doughty on playing for Jon Cooper:
I love having Coop as a coach. His meetings are very different. He uses different words. He keeps you engaged when he is talking. Off the ice, he is just a great guy. I really enjoy him. He’s a very good coach who is very direct on what he wants us to do. He’s been great to play for.
[The pre-game speeches] are where he gets you. I don’t really know how to explain it, but he just keeps you dialed into it the whole time, even if it drags on long. Sometimes, coaches can lose you a little bit, but he doesn’t lose anyone in the room. He has some special way. I don’t know what he is doing, but he is good at it.
Jon Cooper on playing a momentous game in enemy territory:
Again, with being in Canada and being able to play in front of our fans in Montreal, it is hard to replicate what happened. It is a hockey experience I will never forget, just being able to walk around and see how happy everyone was about the sport.
Can that be replicated here? I am not sure. You hope it will be, but there were probably more Canadians in the stands in Montreal… How do I say this properly? There are probably going to be more Canadians here than there were Americans in Montreal if that makes any sense.
In that regard, it will be highly contested on the ice, and there might be chants going on in the stands, but we are here to celebrate the sport. We can sit here and talk politics all we want. This is a different avenue. We are here to celebrate this game.
After this game, for all of the little girls and boys out there who are inspired by the players who play this game and how they compete, if they go and become hockey players, that is the real win — not who wins on the ice.
Noah Hanifin on Team USA’s five-minute call with President Trump:
Hopefully, we can get the win tonight for our country and for Trump.
Mike Sullivan on the call from President Trump:
It was a distinct honour. Politics aside, when the President of the United States takes the time to speak to our players, it is an incredible honour.
It is an indication once again of the impact this tournament has had on people in the United States. People are paying attention. That is a credit to all of the players and their commitment to excellence in how competitive these games have been.
It was an incredible honour. I know we have a locker room full of proud Americans. When the President of the United States takes time out of his busy schedule to say a few words to our guys, I know it means a lot to every one of us.
Sullivan on whether the politically charged atmosphere around the two nations is bleeding onto the ice:
I am not sure the political environment has anything to do with what is going on on the ice. There is a certain pride that both Canada and the United States have for representing their country and what this means to all of the players.
From watching this tournament with all of the four nations, these players care a lot and have a lot of pride for the jersey they’re pulling over their heads. My feeling from being around this American team is that this group has an awful lot of pride in being American, first and foremost, but also being a part of American hockey, which has developed and grown exponentially over their lifetime.
The guys that represent are our very best. They feel a certain responsibility to put their best game on the ice. These players are invested. Because of that, you are seeing the emotionally-charged games that you are seeing out there.
Sullivan on the importance of puck management in the tight-checking hockey of these Canada-USA matchups:
Any time you put that type of talent on the ice, managing the puck is an essential part of winning. If you mismanage the puck or chase offense, the unintended consequence is that you could give easy offense to your opponent. That is something that we have talked about from day one, regardless of who we are playing. We have to manage the puck appropriately in the critical areas of the rink.
We don’t want to take the stick out of the players’ hands — these guys are elite players, and we want them to trust their instincts — but we want them to have an understanding of where we are on the rink and the risk-reward relationship.
We want to be a team that is hard to play against. I can only speak for our group. I think these guys understand what winning looks like, and managing the puck is an essential part of winning.
Sullivan on Jon Cooper’s comment that Canada wasn’t good enough inside the final 20 feet of the offensive zone in last Saturday’s loss to the U.S.:
I thought we defended extremely hard. It is something we talked about from day one — the importance of making sure we are hard to play against with our commitment away from the puck. Our guys were very committed in that area of the game.
The one area we could have done a better job: When we got the lead, we tried to defend it too much instead of staying on our toes and having the ability to control territory. When we are at our best, we are playing a north-south game. We are putting heat on our opponents by controlling territory.
When we got that second goal, in the third period, we defended hard and didn’t give up a lot, but I thought we could’ve had the puck more and spent more time in the offensive zone. That starts with a mindset.
Sullivan on his team’s ability to force Canada’s top players to dump pucks in last Saturday:
Structure. If you have structure, I don’t care who the player is. If you have to go through five players at this level of the game, it is difficult. You have to beat layers of defense.
I thought we played with pretty good structure through the neutral zone, in particular, which is a really important area of the rink. A lot of times, the neutral zone decides which end of the rink you are going to play in. If you make good decisions with the puck, your ability to play inside the offensive zone increases. If you have structure without the puck, you have the ability to make it hard for your opponent to enter the zone and have the ability to counter-attack.
It is an important zone that sets up the game, and I thought we had pretty good structure through that neutral zone. When you are playing players of that calibre — Connor and Nate are elite players with dynamic speed and are not easy to defend one-on-one — it makes it a whole lot harder for them if you defend in numbers.
Team Canada Projected Lines
Forwards
#61 Mark Stone — #97 Connor McDavid — #21 Brayden Point
#87 Sidney Crosby — #29 Nathan MacKinnon — #13 Sam Reinhart
#38 Brandon Hagel — #71 Anthony Cirelli — #16 Mitch Marner
#63 Brad Marchand — #9 Sam Bennett — #24 Seth Jarvis
Defensemen
#5 Devon Toews — #8 Cale Makar
#48 Thomas Harley — #55 Colton Parayko
#6 Travis Sanheim — #89 Drew Doughty
Goaltenders
Starter: #50 Jordan Binnington
#33 Adin Hill
Out: Shea Theodore
Extras: Travis Konecny, Thomas Harley, Sam Montembault
Team USA Projected Lines
Forwards
#7 Brady Tkachuk — #9 Jack Eichel — #19 Matthew Tkachuk
#59 Jake Guentzel — #34 Auston Matthews — #86 Jack Hughes
#10 JT Miller — #21 Dylan Larkin — #12 Matt Boldy
#20 Chris Kreider* — #16 Vincent Trocheck — #29 Brock Nelson
Defensemen
#74 Jaccob Slavin — #14 Brock Faber
#15 Noah Hanifin — #23 Adam Fox
#8 Zach Werenski — #85 Jake Sanderson
Goaltenders
Starter: #37 Connor Hellebuyck
#30 Jake Oettinger
Out: Charlie McAvoy
Extras: Jeremy Swayman, Kyle Connor/Chris Kreider*, Brett Pesce, Tage Thompson
