An international hockey rivalry that hasn’t seen the big stage in nearly a decade, USA vs. Canada delivered in so many ways and captured the attention of the general sports fan on a weekend where it was competing against the NBA All-Star weekend. The match on Saturday night is doing wonders to grow the game, and the reported average viewership as of Sunday was 4.4M with a peak at 5.2M. Those numbers could change once the final tally comes in on Tuesday. All three Florida Panthers hit the ice after Sam Bennett was healthy scratched for the Sweden game. While they weren’t the stars of the sho,w there were still memorable moments, especially for Matthew Tkachuk.
Matthew Tkachuk:
You’re going to be hard-pressed to find a player as in tune with the emotional side of hockey as Matthew Tkachuk. If there’s one thing in big-game hockey that’s certain, if M. Tkachuk is on the ice he’s going to do something big early to fire up his team. In last season’s Eastern Conference Finals, it was laying a huge open ice hit and against Finland, it was throwing a big hit at the endboards. Saturday night it was dropping gloves immediately off the opening faceoff with Hagel. What started with just him fighting Hagel turned into the most insane nine seconds to open a period as his brother Brady got into a fight with Sam Bennett when the puck was dropped again. After about six seconds of play, J. T. Miller dropped gloves with Parayko. As his brother Brady headed to the penalty box, Matthew was visibly hyped up and welcomed Brady to the box, where they discussed the fights as was shared in videos online with Brady being mic’d up for the game. The fighting at the start was the highlight for Tkachuk as the rest of the match, he spent more time making defensive plays, breaking up passes, absorbing hits, and checking hard. About eight minutes into the third period, Tkachuk signaled to the bench that he wasn’t able to stay on the ice and was out the remainder of the game, although he stayed on the bench to support his teammates. He said after the game that he wasn’t worried about the injury. The undisclosed lower-body injury will keep Matthew out of Monday’s game against Sweden in the hopes that he’ll be ready to go for the Championship match.
Sam Reinhart:
It was a relatively quiet night for Reinhart as he did get in on a small shoving match with McAvoy but otherwise was playing more of a defensive game. He had a chance at the net on the power play that got saved and threw some good checks, especially in the defensive zone. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed over the two Canada games, it’s that I don’t think the Team Canada system that emphasizes speed suits Reinhart’s playstyle all that well. His game is more suited for the hard forechecking style used by the Americans and the Finnish rather than winning a track meet with the opponent. More often than not, he’s been the defensive forward on his line as McDavid and Marner steak into the offensive zone, so he’s not getting as many opportunities to shoot or make a play. As such, HC Cooper made the decision to pull Reinhart off of the top line with McDavid and Marner partway through the game. If Reinhart is given more of a bottom-six role and paired with Sam Bennett if he plays, then there may be more success for Samson.
Sam Bennett:
Team Canada brought him in for his physicality, and he delivered on that front. He got into a fight with Brady at the start of the match and held his own against the much bigger Tkachuk. Not one to back down from fisticuffs when Brady challenged him from the bench, he happily obliged. Bennett was second on Team Canada in hits at four, only Cirelli had more at five. One of his hits was a big one that drew cheers from the raucous Canadian crowd, and he also had three SOG, which tied him with McDavid and Stone for most on the team. HC Cooper opted not to play him much as he only had 7:41 TOI which was the lowest on the team, his linemate Marchand also played under ten minutes logging 8:23 TOI.
ITR 26: 2 Nations Fighting – Inside The Rink
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