Welcome to Instant Reaction — 4 Nations Face-Off edition! Typically, we give our Instant Reaction to Vancouver Canucks games, but since those aren’t happening right now, we thought we’d do the same for the 4 Nations Face-Off.
I promised David Quadrelli I would try to keep things apolitical in tonight’s Four Nations Faceoff Finale Instant Reaction.
With that, let’s get into one of the most important games of best-on-best hockey since 2010, and then make appointments with our cardiologists!

First Period Recap

Inspired by the raucous booing from those inside the TD Garden, Team USA threatened early and often with quick chances off the rush. Canada looked off-balance, struggling to keep pace.
Though Team Canada looked smooth transitioning the puck up the ice from the d-zone, they struggled to connect in the offensive zone with meaningful shots against Connor Hellebuyck.
Despite the early lag and Brady Tkachuk’s relentless little brother energy, the American’s play for a 51st state was put on hold, thanks to a phenomenal goal from Nathan MacKinnon.
1-0 Canada: Nathan MacKinnon from Thomas Harley and Sam Reinhart
Unsurprisingly to those who didn’t start watching this past week, Nate Dogg opened the score of his patented laser speed. Exchanging with Thomas Harley at the top of the left circle, MacKinnon darted into the middle, twisting Brady Tkachuk like a pretzel before rifling a wrist shot through traffic past an unsuspecting Hellebuyck.
On a line with Sidney Crosby and MacKinnon, Seth Jarvis nearly made it two-zip for the good guys, crashing the net for multiple rebound chances just past the halfway point of the opening frame.
Now, a game featuring Jordan Binnington between the pipes wouldn’t be a game featuring Jordan Binnington between the pipes without an egregiously silly misplay of the puck and a wide-open scoring opportunity for the opposition.
“Standing tall” was almost why Dylan Larkin tied the game at one apiece, but I digress. Fortunately, no American was in range to capitalize on Larkin’s pass through the crease for the tap-in goal.
The Americans would not make the same mistake twice.
1-1 Tie: Brady Tkachuk from Auston Matthews 
With less than four minutes left in the period, Auston Matthews raced to the endboards to pick off a Devon Toews pass to Cale Makar. Toews did not get enough steam on his pass, allowing Matthews to reach around Binnington’s net for a wraparound. Despite Toews, Mark Stone, and Brayden Point hovering around the crease to deny the wraparound, the PDO gods weren’t on their side. Matthews appeared to flub his wraparound attempt, sending a short pass out to the top of the crease, allowing Brady Tkachuk to sneak past the row of bodies for a light flip over Binnington’s blocker side.
Team USA’s speed generally dictated the pace of play in the first 20 minutes. While Team Canada did well to out-attempt their southern enemies, USA’s chances looked significantly more dangerous.

Second Period Recap

Team Canada came out swinging with some good early chances.
Then, the US did.
Then things got scrappy.
Then, Canadians got the full Binnington experience.
Kudos first: one second, Binnington executes a pitch-altering split to make an incredible save with the outstretched glove. One second after that, Binnington loses the puck in that glove and spins around in his crease, wondering where the puck has gone. Fortunately, in this instance, the puck sprang out to the left circle and out of American hands.
Not long after, Team USA benefitted from another fortunate bounce into the slot, resulting in Jake Sanderson’s first goal of the tournament.
2-1 USA: Jake Sanderson from Auston Matthews and Zack Werenski
Somehow, an Auston Matthews backhander rebounds off Binnington’s right pad and into the air, dropping at the feet of Sanderson for the quick-touch shot into the net.
With nine minutes left in the middle frame, the Canadians earned the game’s first power play when 18-year-old Sam Bennett drew a tripping minor against Vincent Trochek.
The Canadian’s power play moved the puck quite well but looked mostly unthreatening. The Americans got the best chance of the power play when a poke check led to a spooky-looking 3-on-1 rush chance.
The Canadian’s next-best look came upon the return to 5-on-5 when Jacob Slavin denied Sidney Crosby a tap-in opportunity with a slick backhander from the crease.
In his tenth year as an 18-year-old, Sam Bennett made a legitimate case for the construction of an 18-foot-tall bronze statue of himself outside Parliament Hill, rifling a f*****g filthy backhander on Hellebuyck that tied the game at two.
2-2 Tie: Sam Bennett from Mitch Marner
Bennett began the sequence with a fantastic poke in the neutral zone against JT Miller to help regain possession and break the puck into the offensive zone for Marner. Marner wisely cuts to the guts of the ice, drawing Adam Fox into the middle and opening space for Bennett to drive into Hellebuyck uncontested for the equalizer.
Though we typically don’t hand it to Leafs players here at CanucksArmy, you have to hand it to Marner on this one; it’s a brilliant read to create space.
Bennett’s goal seemed to awaken the Canadian’s physicality. The final 10 minutes saw several punishing hits and a noticeable turnaround in Canada’s engagement in the checking game.
Even McDavid showed up, driving through the middle for a great scoring chance.
Tensions at an all time high, the second period concluded with both teams tied in shots and goals.

Third Period Recap

The Americans got the first good look of the final frame when a bad break for Brayden Point gave Jake Guentzel — a fairly good player — and Jack Hughes — also a fairly good player — a two-on-none rush opportunity. Binnington came up huge in the moment, stopping Guentzel with ease.
The Americans then tested Binnington again, leading to his biggest save of the game, by my estimate.
I was unable to find a clip of Binnington’s best save. Go figure!
He was bad, folks. The goalie guild can’t make up any stats to defend his performance. Every save was a complete fiesta. Every rebound was untraceable. Every simple save looked difficult.
Kudos to him for not losing his cool after looking generally lost.
Approaching the halfway mark of the period, the Canadians generated their best chance, a run of possession inside the offensive zone resulting in a hammering shot from Brandon Hagel off the outside of Hellebuyck’s goalpost.
On the other side of the ice, Jacob Slavin continued angling for Norris Trophy considerations with his second game-saving block of the evening.
Myers-esque sprawl to deny Seth Jarvis his shot on goal.
The back-10 featured a half-dozen chances for both squads.
McDavid earned a handful of breakaway opportunities, but the juice wasn’t there. Clearly, something was ailing him in tonight’s action because his puck control was easily some of the worst among Canadian forwards.
In the final minute of regulation, the Canadians pressed, with Marner driving down the right wing and executing a gorgeous cross-ice feed to McDavid at the side of the net, which should have been the game-winning goal.
Unfortunately, JT Miller had something to say about that, rolling back the clock and executing a brilliant backchecking effort to save a guaranteed goal like it was 2021-22 again!
Cardiologists across Canada were thrilled when the buzzer sounded after 60 minutes.
I was not.
The tense, nausea-inducing, back-and-forth hockey would continue in do-or-die overtime. Because, of course, there’d be no other way to settle this war.

Overtime Recap

I know stuff happened during the first three minutes. But I was holding my breath the entire time and forgot to clock any of it in my brain.
It. Was. Tense.
Team USA were all over Team Canada through the opening five minutes.
Binnington was game, making a string of terrific stops while under total duress to keep Canada’s hopes as a sovereign nation alive.
First, he made a brilliant blocker stop on Auston Matthews from point-blank range after a total fiesta of a sequence for Canada inside the d-zone.
Binnington kept trying to one-up his “best save of the tournament,” making a phenomenal glove save on Brady Tkachuk.
Then, it happened.
After getting shellacked for nine minutes against the US and having played the worst individual game of his that anyone had ever seen him play, Connor McDavid won it for Canada.
3-2 Canada: Connor McDavid from Mitch Marner and Cale Makar
Mitch Marner cross-ice to a wide-open McDavid for the win.
Binnington, after one of the most stressful games I’ve ever seen from a netminder, defeated the Americans.
You love to see it, folks!!!!
What’s your instant reaction to tonight’s game? Let us know in the comments section below!
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