BROSSARD, Que. — The doors open to Team Canada’s dressing room and Seth Jarvis is sitting smack in the middle of it, sandwiched between the two greatest players of their respective generations, peeling off his equipment much slower than he should be peeling it off.
“Best seat in the house,” Jarvis says of his spot beside Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby, but that’s before dozens of reporters and cameras threaten to box him into it for the entirety of this long first post-practice media availability.
Even if Jarvis had gotten stuck there on Monday — and thankfully, he didn’t — he’d have rather been sitting right there than in the chair he was occupying earlier as a penalty killer to a power-play unit comprised of Crosby, McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Sam Reinhart and Cale Makar.
“We were talking on the bench that if you could choose anyone in the world for a unit, it’d be these guys. They’re the five best you could possibly have on a power play,” Jarvis said. “That’s pretty scary. Thankfully I don’t have to face them in a game.”
But thankfully, we’ll get to watch them in one.
It’s a dream scenario that we hoped would come to life before the under-23 North American team was built to compete with Canada at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
We were robbed of the McDavid-Crosby-MacKinnon nuclear option then — and once again at the 2018 and 2022 Winter Olympic Games, which were held without NHL participants. And a freak collision Crosby was involved in last week nearly robbed us of it again for this 4 Nations Face-Off.
But Captain Canada isn’t just filling a seat next to Jarvis in the dressing room, he’s bringing his gold-medal-winning experience to the ice.
“Good to go,” Crosby said.
They were three words all of Canada needed to hear after he missed the last two Pittsburgh Penguins games with an upper-body ailment.
Crosby skated on his own and consulted with doctors before landing in Montreal. He said he met with Team Canada’s doctors upon his arrival, and then, on Monday, he hopped on the ice for practice and into his power-play spot between McDavid and MacKinnon.
MacKinnon qualified it as “special,” saying, “those two are definitely top five ever.”
“It’s exciting,” Crosby said. “Obviously a ton of talent, a ton of skill. Having to think and move quickly and that sort of thing, be instinctive but also react to some of the plays that they make. I think that’s fun.”
We think it’s the most compelling thing we’ll see over the coming days, with respect to the Americans, Finns and Swedes.
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4 Nations Face-Off on Sportsnet
The inaugural edition of the 4 Nations Face-Off is here with the top players from Canada, Sweden, Finland and the United States going head-to-head in the highly anticipated best-on-best event. Watch all the games on Sportsnet, starting with Canada vs. Sweden on Feb. 12 at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT.
It’s been 38 years since we saw Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux play on a line with Dale Hawerchuk at the 1987 Canada Cup, and it’s hard to say we’ve seen as powerful a combination for any hockey nation since.
That Canada’s Jon Cooper even has the option of calling out 97, 87 and 29 for a shift is a coach’s dream, even if he downplayed it slightly after Monday’s practice.
“I’ve been on record saying the ’87 Canada Cup was arguably the greatest hockey/three-game segment you’ve ever seen,” he said of the final between Canada and the former Soviet Union. “But I think today’s players are different than those players back then. We don’t have Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, but we have Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid and go down the list. But that gap between say the 12th forward in ’87 and the first forward I think is a lot farther than the gap in today’s team and the first forward. There’s just weapons all over the ice, and it was super cool being on the ice at ice level to watch what was going on here. There’s just no holes. Not saying these other teams in the past had holes, but I think you can put a lot of guys together and create that chemistry…”
Fair.
But Cooper didn’t wait to roll out his biggest guns on a single power-play unit, and we know we weren’t the only ones who would be delighted by the possibility he’d do that.
“You always want to see the best players play together,” said Gretzky when we spoke with him at the NHL’s Board of Governors meeting in early December.
The Great One is getting what he wants, and so are we.
Crosby’s dedication sets the tone for Canada
The three-time Stanley Cup winner, who scored the Golden Goal in the 2010 Vancouver Games and captained Canada to gold at the 2014 Sochi Games and the 2016 World Cup, is unquestionably this team’s leader.
“He’s the guy guys are kind of looking towards, especially in an experience like this where it’s new for so many,” said the 29-year-old Reinhart of his 37-year-old captain. “It’s been 10 years (since the 2014 Olympics), a lot of us weren’t even kids in the league when that was going on. So, guys are aware, guys know we haven’t played the last couple (Olympics), and it’s easy to see what it means to him. That’s kind of what it is to a Canadian growing up with the game, so he sets the tone in every way.”
Crosby set it just by showing up here, with his presence at this tournament obviously put in jeopardy by the injury he suffered last week.
What a relief.
Cooper knows how much it means to have No. 87 leading this team.
“The way he is and interacts as the guy that carries so much weight… There’s just so much humility about him, and it just comes through him, and that’s why people follow him,” the coach said. “You talk about wanting to play for your country, this kid, it’s remarkable the passion he has for it, and that’s probably why he’s got a whole lot of wins and not a whole lot of losses when he plays in these events.”
Crosby’s just glad he has one more opportunity to play in one.
“It means a lot: another opportunity to represent Canada, get to play with guys that I’ve played with before — a couple — but mostly a lot of new faces, too, and guys that haven’t had the opportunity in a long time to play for Canada,” he said. “A lot of different reasons, but obviously playing for Team Canada is always a huge honour, and especially to be here in Montreal. It’s a great atmosphere.”
Starting goaltender still a mystery
While Cooper couldn’t hide his line and special teams combinations at Monday’s practice, he did say he wouldn’t confirm a starting goaltender for Wednesday’s opening game against Sweden until after Tuesday’s practice.
We got a bit of clarity about part of the pecking order when Montreal Canadiens goaltender Samuel Montembeault started practice on the sidelines.
Montembeault eventually rotated in at both ends, where St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington and Vegas Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill did the lion’s share of the work.
Then, after practice, Montembeault was pushed from his regular stall with the Canadiens, where Hill was placed.
“That’s where Carey Price used to sit,” Montembeault said to Hill.
Binnington was across from them, in the seat typically reserved for the backup goaltender of the Canadiens.
Still, there are no guarantees he’ll be the backup come Wednesday.
One thing we can guarantee after having spoken to all three goaltenders is they don’t care for the narrative that’s developed that they represent a potential weakness for this strong Canadian side.
Hill and Binnington are Stanley Cup winners, Montembeault backstopped Canada to gold at the world championship in 2023, and all three want to prove they belong here.
But more than anything, “we’re just looking to win,” said Hill.
“At the end of the day, it’s a four-game tournament, so it’s just coming into every game with a killer mentality,” he added. “There’s no time to have a bad game, so just go out and win.”
Speaking of narratives…
Crosby takes no issue with the one that’s developed around USA Hockey’s rise to supremacy.
Many people see the Americans as the team to beat at this tournament and Crosby understands why.
“I think that’s fair,” said the native of Cole Harbour, N.S.
As Crosby continued, though, it sounded more like he was just acknowledging he knows that narrative is out there.
“There’s always going to be narratives, and you look at their team and the depth and you look how they’ve done internationally, there’s always going to be certain narratives,” Crosby said. “Really, it’s just about our group and making sure that we do everything we can to be at our best. Whether it’s the U.S. or Sweden or Finland, there’s some good teams. We just got to worry about what we need to do to be the best team we can.”
Quick hits
• Travis Konecny missed Monday’s practice because he was too sick to participate. We don’t know his status for Wednesday’s game against Sweden, but the thought of him joining Brad Marchand and Brayden Point and potentially playing in favour of Jarvis would give Canada two of the peskiest lines the country has ever assembled.
The other one features Tampa Bay Lightning forwards Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel and Florida Panthers superpest Sam Bennett.
• Cirelli said there will be nothing awkward about playing with Bennett, his cross-state nemesis. “It’s crazy how quickly those rivalries dissipate when you are on the same team as someone and playing on a line together,” he added. “It’s going to be awesome. They’re both great competitors and great players. Excited to play with ’em.”
• Mitch Marner took a hard fall in practice and was delighted to hear barely anyone noticed because Crosby’s line with MacKinnon and Mark Stone was taking a rush at the other end at the same time.
• On the line combination of Reinhart-McDavid-Marner, Cooper said, “You got speed, you got brains, and you got guys that can shoot it in the net. You hand me a line like that, I’ll take my chances.”
Marner has 71 points in 54 games so far this season. McDavid has as many in 49 games. And Reinhart, who had 57 goals last regular season before scoring 10 in 24 playoff games to help the Panthers win the Cup, has 31 goals and 31 assists through 57 games through this year’s campaign.
So yeah, decent line…
• Last lines of this notebook go to Drew Doughty, the two-time Cup winner and two-time Olympic gold medallist who was the last player added to this team following Alex Pietrangelo’s withdrawal.
“We’ve experienced these things,” Doughty said of the leadership he and Crosby can provide. “Not that these guys aren’t all veterans in here but (a lot of them have) never had a Canada best-on-best type of tournament. They can lean on us. Not that they’re going to need advice, but we can keep the room calm, we can bring the room when we need to, maybe kick some guys’ asses if we need to. I think it’s important to have some leadership in the room.”
