MILAN — Canada is a perfect 2-0 at the Olympics after beating fast and talented Switzerland 5-1 in a preliminary round game Friday at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. With the win, the Canadians clinched the top spot in Group A.

Connor McDavid had his second straight three-point game for Canada, which has now combined to beat the Czech Republic and Switzerland by a total score of 10-1 through two games.

Canada will finish the round-robin preliminary round against France on Sunday.

McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Macklin Celebrini and Thomas Harley scored for Canada, which made a series of adjustments over the course of the game as head coach Jon Cooper continues to learn about his team.

What must be scary for the rest of the field is that, while Canada has been excellent through two games, it has not seemingly played its best hockey yet.

The game took a scary turn with a bit less than three minutes remaining when Canada forward Tom Wilson collided with Switzerland’s Kevin Fiala. After a long delay, Fiala was loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled off the ice as Canadian players gathered near the gate to tap their sticks.

Another level for McDavid

After putting up three assists in Canada’s tournament-opening 5-0 win against the Czechs, McDavid had a goal and two assists in the first period against Switzerland, giving him five points on Canada’s first seven goals of the tournament.

McDavid scored his first Olympic goal at 5:45 of the first period, converting a beautiful cross-ice pass from Nathan MacKinnon to give Canada a 1-0 lead. A little more than five minutes later, McDavid pulled up in the offensive zone and found defenseman Thomas Harley with a saucer pass to the weak side of the ice, and Harley beat Akira Schmid through the legs to put Canada up 2-0.

McDavid struck again late in the third period when he made an incredible move to the net, got a shot on goal and MacKinnon cleaned up the rebound to make it 5-1 Canada.

But we are accustomed to McDavid’s offensive wizardry. This is not all that surprising.

What is surprising is how McDavid has become a physical tone-setter.

In the opening game, it was a thunderous hit on Czech defenseman Lukáš Sedlák on McDavid’s first shift that got the Canada bench buzzing. Against Switzerland, on the shift following Swiss forward Pius Suter’s power-play goal that made it a 2-1 game, Swiss defenseman Andrea Glauser had a puck coming toward him behind the Swiss net when McDavid lowered a shoulder into Glauser’s chest with a little less than seven minutes left in the first period.

Glauser labored to the Swiss bench, hunched over in pain, and did not return to the game. Glauser is Roman Josi’s regular defense partner — they played together in leading Switzerland to the World Championships finals the last two years — and if he were to be lost long-term, it would be a big blow to Switzerland’s medal hopes.

But the McDavid hit — again — appeared to wake Canada up after allowing a goal.

McDavid lighting it up offensively is one thing. If he’s also going to be a physical sparkplug for Canada, that seems inherently unfair.

A new three-headed monster

Well, so much for the three-headed monster. Instead, what emerged during Friday night’s game was a new top-line monster.

The idea from the Canadian coaching staff entering the Olympic tournament was to have McDavid, MacKinnon and Crosby centering three different lines. The point of it, as Cooper said, was that they learned at 4 Nations that a normal 23 minutes for a player in an NHL game was like 16 minutes of best-on-best international hockey, based on the crazy pace and energy needed. So, they wanted to try spreading out the big dogs and not overuse them here in Milan. Hence, the three-headed monster down the middle. It worked marvellously in the opening 5-0 win over the Czechs as members of all four forward lines scored.

But late in the first period Friday night, there was MacKinnon on the right wing of the McDavid top line with Celebrini, replacing Tom Wilson. Two shifts later, early in the second period, all three combined for a mesmerizing passing play that culminated in Celebrini one-timing a shot to give Canada a 3-1 lead, and they combined on MacKinnon’s goal that made it 5-1 late in the third period.

The tweak sent Nick Suzuki back to his natural center on a line between Brandon Hagel and Wilson, where he finished the game. Suzuki had a few defensive miscues in his own zone in the first period while playing wing on a line with MacKinnon and Hagel, one time failing to chip it out past the Swiss defender. Again, that is not a natural play for him along the boards as he doesn’t play wing in the NHL and hasn’t since his rookie season in 2019-20. So, we wonder if the coaching staff not only wanted to load up with Celebrini-McDavid-MacKinnon, but also decided it was wise to put Suzuki back where he’s most comfortable, at center.

Whatever the case, it means Team Canada for now is a more traditional top-six, bottom-six team. Crosby’s line with Mark Stone and Mitch Marner, which was very good for a second game in a row, completed the top six, while the fourth-line group of Bo Horvat with wingers Sam Reinhart and/or Sam Bennett/Seth Jarvis completed the bottom group along with the new Suzuki line.

As we saw at 4 Nations, Team Canada modified its forward line combinations a number of times over four games. Cooper isn’t afraid to tweak.

Canada’s adjustments with Morrissey injured

Jarvis came in for Brad Marchand up front for Team Canada, Travis Sanheim replaced the injured Josh Morrissey on the back end, and Jordan Binnington didn’t even dress two nights after blanking the Czech Republic. Against Switzerland, Logan Thompson got the start in goal with Darcy Kuemper backing up.

The net result was that everyone on the Canadian roster has now appeared in uniform at the Olympics.

Jarvis played the fewest minutes in what appeared to be a 13th-forward role, while Sanheim played the fewest minutes as the seventh defenseman.

But the key adjustment was Shea Theodore moving up to replace the injured Morrissey on the second pairing with Colton Parayko. This is very much worth monitoring moving forward, depending on how long Morrissey is out. The coaching staff was going to rely heavily at five-on-five on the top four of Devon Toews-Cale Makar and Morrissey-Parayko. Of course, Theodore is a talented player who can probably handle it, but it’s a change of plans.

Thompson, meanwhile, was very sharp, especially in the first period when the Swiss had several decent looks, including an aggressive save coming out to thwart Nino Niederreiter when the Swiss broke in three-on-one and the Winnipeg Jets forward found himself alone on the Washington Capitals goalie. All in all, it was a rather comfortable-looking Thompson in his first-ever taste of Olympic hockey.

Lots to think about for the coaching staff with both Binnington and Thompson faring rather well in their respective starts ahead of their next game Sunday versus France to wrap up the preliminary round.