There’s no time to be wrong. It’s about making changes without time to practise them or view them, without any real kind of perspective.
On Monday afternoon, with the foolish staged fighting and anthem debate over, Team Canada will play for its survival at the 4 Nations Face-off tournament in the uncomfortable game that is always a bout with Team Finland. Those who haven’t watched Finland play hockey over the past 20 years may not completely comprehend the magnitude of this matchup. This is the kind of grind-it-out, no space, big-system team that patiently waits for breaks and lets you make the mistake.
With an overtime win over Sweden and a close loss to the U.S., Cooper’s Team Canada hasn’t yet found itself in this short event. They’ve had moments — the spectacular Connor McDavid goal against the Americans was the best of the individual moments — but Cooper has to be determining lineup changes for his must-win team which, if accomplished, puts Team Canada into the final against the Americans. One must-win, followed by another.
Cooper can look at his lineup after two games and realize that not all that he had on paper is clicking so far. Part of that is because of the tightness and quality of the defensive play of the opponents and part of that is there has been no real fit for the lines centred by McDavid and the NHL’s leading scorer, Nathan MacKinnon. These may be the two most explosive players in the tournament, but only on occasion have they exploded so far.
The line with McDavid centring Mitch Marner and Sam Reinhart hasn’t really accomplished much of anything in the tournament. No sustained offence. No chemistry to speak of between the three playing together. Shooting when they should be passing, passing when they should be shooting.
McDavid’s masterful goal against Team USA came off a pass from defenceman Drew Doughty. Marner’s overtime goal was scored at 3-on-3, where there was space. But otherwise, Marner and Reinhart have hardly been noticeable at 5-on-5.
The MacKinnon line, with Sidney Crosby on left wing and Mark Stone on the right, had better moments against Sweden in Game 1 than against the U.S. MacKinnon is trying to do too much on his own — which he may be able to do in NHL games, but not against opponents of this quality.
Of the three assists Crosby collected in Game 1 — he had a difficult Game 2 with a weak turnover that led to the winning U.S. goal — one was a power-play feed, one was a 3-on-3 overtime pass, and one came on Stone’s even-strength goal.
So what does Cooper do with his top two lines? What wins in hockey, the better players or the better team? Does he leave his apparent big lines alone with the hope that the more they play together, the better they’ll get? Or does he shift people around?
Team USA coach Mike Sullivan made a quick switch in Game 1, moving Brady Tkachuk alongside his brother Matthew, with Jack Eichel playing centre. Against the Finns, with Juuse Saros playing terribly in net, both Tkachuk brothers scored twice in the 6-1 win. Sullivan moved Kyle Connor to his fourth line early in the game.
Cooper may not have a Brady Tkachuk to go to in trying to get his lines going offensively. The Tampa line of Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel has been easy to miss so far, as have fourth-liners Sam Bennett, Wes Jarvis and Brad Marchand. Cooper also has Travis Konecny to place back in the lineup if he thinks it’s necessary.
When there’s little open ice, offence has to start from the defensive end of the puck. That’s what happened when Doughty found McDavid open and hit him in the neutral zone with a perfect scoring pass.
Without Cale Makar playing his usual 28 minutes, the Canadian defence is limited offensively. And it’s more limited because Alex Pietrangelo declined to play for Canada and Shea Theodore, injured in the Sweden game, is out for the tournament and longer.
If Makar, sidelined by illness for the U.S. game, returns to face Finland , that should help. A pairing of Makar and Devon Toews should be good for almost half the game on the back end. That leaves Doughty, Josh Morrissey, Colton Parayko and Travis Sanheim in a position to supply the kind of puck movement to put Canada on the rush with some kind of speed.
The Finns don’t give up a lot of room through the middle of the ice. But they are weak in the back end, playing without their superstar Miro Heiskanen. Canada needs to find ways to put pressure on the Finnish defence, which is the one weakness they should be able to expose.
The other question for coach Cooper: What does he do with his goaltenders?
Without answering Sunday, Cooper really has no choice now. He has to start Jordan Binnington for a third straight game. Though he’s let in soft goals in both starts for Canada, Binnington has also been sharp when the game has been on the line late.
To go to Adin Hill now is too much of a gamble. So Cooper is left with Binnington. The rest of the lineup needs some kind of tinkering.
Just how much will be seen on win-or-go-home Monday afternoon.
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