Falling short of the 4 Nations Face-Off final simply was not an option for Team Canada. That’s the standard 38 million Canadians hold them to. Even more importantly, that’s the expectation they place on themselves.
“As Canadians, the players feel the same way as the fans,” Drew Doughty said at the outset of a tournament that will culminate with a Canada-U.S. final on Thursday night.
“We expect to win and we’re not going to be satisfied with anything but a championship. I think a lot of the guys in here, we feel that pressure obviously, but that’s what we thrive under. It doesn’t affect our game.”
Canada dug deep and delivered its most complete performance yet, beating Finland 5-3 on Monday afternoon. The game was a must-win, and the Canadians took meaningful strides in all aspects of their play after opening the tournament with a 4-3 overtime win over the Swedes and a 3-1 loss to the Americans.
Nathan MacKinnon scored twice after enduring a frustrating night in Saturday’s loss. Connor McDavid set the tone with another game-opening goal and looked dangerous with Brayden Point moved up to his wing. Jordan Binnington received his coach’s confidence with a third straight start and responded with a 23-save outing. And Cale Makar was a puck-moving machine who logged nearly 24 minutes in his return to the lineup after being forced out by illness over the weekend.
Talk about a palate-cleansing performance to wash away the sour taste of losing to the Americans.
What stood out was how energetic and connected the Canadian attack looked, even though the players had their sleep patterns disrupted while traveling between Montreal and Boston. They didn’t arrive until about 6 a.m. Sunday after flying through a blizzard, and then played their first afternoon game of the tournament, needing a regulation victory to advance to the final.
Still, the Canadians shook off those circumstances and took a meaningful step forward as a group, scoring goals off the rush and the forecheck to chase Kevin Lankinen from the Finnish goal while making very few mistakes and avoiding major breakdowns in front of Binnington.
They also showed much more of a shooting mentality after overpassing at times during the loss to Team USA, especially early, registering a tournament-high 11 shots in the first period against the Finns.
“We have to play the game like how we played a tied game with five minutes left; that’s how we have to play the entire game,” Canada coach Jon Cooper said. “Just stay disciplined and in our process. We don’t need to manufacture something out of nothing because we’ve got the guys who have been able to make plays when it comes down to it.”
Organizers will be doing cartwheels about a must-see U.S.-Canada rematch in the 4 Nations final. The Americans initiated three fights in the opening nine seconds of Saturday’s game in an effort to, as Brady Tkachuk told reporters, signal to the hockey world: “It’s our time now.”
But Canada still finds itself one win away from extending a run of best-on-best men’s dominance to four straight events after previously taking gold at the 2010 and 2014 Olympics, plus the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
Not to be overlooked in the significance of reaching the 4 Nations final is that it buys the Canadian players and staff another 72 hours together. They’ll get two more days of meetings and practices, and top it off with the experience of playing a huge game in a hostile TD Garden against an incredibly deep opponent.
Given it’s been nearly nine years since the last event of its kind, plus the fact we’re only one year out from the return of NHL players to the 2026 Olympics in Milan, that additional time together is critical.
While the players are obviously focused on the here and now, senior Hockey Canada officials have been looking at the big picture throughout 4 Nations. That’s included watching back game tape to critique the individual performances of players with the 2026 Games in mind. And it’s even seen Doug Armstrong, who is managing this Canadian team and the Olympic team, dig into how well things are functioning with the equipment and training staffs.
“We’ve been clear — the two (events) are separate,” Hockey Canada senior vice president of high performance Scott Salmond told The Athletic. “We’re not here to learn, we’re here to win. And we’ll learn through that process. I talked to Jon Cooper, and he’s so excited, and he said, ‘Can you imagine if we didn’t have this and today was Game 1 of the Olympics?’ We showed up and had two practices. He’s like, ‘It’s crazy.’ But now he’s going to have all of this under his belt. He’s going to have relationships.
“We’re going to have a continuity amongst our staff and our process. And we’re just going to feel so much more comfortable when we get to Milan because it’s the same thing. It happens so fast.”
The mantra that has carried Canada to so much success in short-term tournaments is taking positive strides every day. They can certainly make that claim so far at 4 Nations, although the coaching staff will surely be addressing the two five-on-six goals they surrendered to Finland late, turning an easy win into a needless nail-biter.
Or, as Binnington termed it: “A great 50-something minutes or so and then it got a little scrambly.”
However, hockey at this level is not a game of perfect.
Any Canadian will tell you it’s about getting results.
When Cooper delivered his pregame speech Monday inside the visitor’s dressing room at TD Garden, he punctuated it with one final thought: “Let’s go make the country proud, OK boys!”
They’ll need one more win to truly meet that objective.
When playing for Canada, that’s just a fact of life.
(Photo: Steve Babineau / 4NFO / World Cup of Hockey via Getty Images)
