Two games in, two wins for Team Canada, who clinched first place in Group A.
This game got off to a fast and furious start, as, unlike in the first game against the Czechs, Switzerland has more depth and quality to match Canada’s pace. Right away, Canada hit the crossbar on a point shot before Switzerland went down the ice on essentially a 3v1. Old friend Denis Malgin found Nino Neiderreiter cross-ice, where he tried to go five-hole on a play he really should have done better with.
Canada then went to the power play, where it didn’t even take them 20 seconds for them to convert. Nathan MacKinnon ripped a cross-ice pass to Connor McDavid, who had ample time and space to pick his play before deciding to rip one through Akira Schmid on the short side.
The game settled down a bit after the 1-0, with the teams trading some zone time rather than end-to-end rushes. The MacKinnon line, in particular, generated a good offensive-zone shift to kill the Switzerland pushback. Right afterward, the McDavid line went to work off the rush following a clean breakout; Tom Wilson gained the zone with speed and dropped it to McDavid, who passed it over to Thomas Harley all alone. With time and space, Harley rolled down, took his time, and ripped it five-hole to make it 2-0 under 11 minutes into the game.
The 2-0 lead was short-lived after Bo Horvat took a high-sticking penalty on the ensuing center-ice faceoff. It appeared Pius Suter was bleeding, and the Swiss pleaded to the officials for a double minor, but somehow, the refs only called it a two. Switzerland still scored one as a one-timer from the wall led to a juicy rebound that Suter pounced on in front.
Canada ended the period outshooting Switzerland 13-11 and up 2-1, a decent indicator of how close the game was. The Swiss had their chances, and the game was flowing well.
After giving up a power-play goal in the first, Canada’s penalty kill was tested again early in the second, but this time Horvat wasn’t in the box, so he was out on PK1 with Hagel. Canada killed it off.
Right after the kill, Cooper loaded up a Celebrini – McDavid – MacKinnon line to counterattack, and they immediately cashed in. MacKinnon found Celebrini in the slot for a one-timer that the 19-year-old blasted home.
Cooper decided to keep the “loaded” line together from that point onward, along with a Hagel – Suzuki – Wilson line, while keeping the Crosby line together. Canada had a power-play chance to stretch the lead to 4-1, but they couldn’t capitalize. In the final minute of the period, the Swiss created two grade A chances — including a 2v1 — to cut the lead to one, but Logan Thompson stood tall.
Canada got back to their game to start the third period, when Seth Jarvis went on a breakaway a few shifts into the final frame. Devon Toews and Sam Reinhart both had clean looks to make it 4-1, but nobody could capitalize.
Switzerland hit the crossbar and generated a really good shift in an attempt to close the lead, but Canada escaped it and effectively ended the game on the next shift. The Crosby line dominated their shift, working the puck low to high and across the blue line, where Marner pulled high while Toews and Makar snapped it to each other. Marner took a pass in the high slot from Makar and found Crosby in front for a deflection to make it 4-1.
For good measure, the new McDavid line scored again after killing a Celebrini offensive-zone penalty. Celebrini looked like he was playing guilty coming out of the box as he flew down the ice and aggressively forechecked, creating a turnover that McDavid drove to the net, where MacKinnon cashed in the rebound.
Unfortunately, the game ended on a bit of a sour note when Switzerland’s Kevin Fiala was stretchered off the ice after his legs got awkwardly tangled with Tom Wilson. I won’t speculate about the nature of the injury, but it’s safe to assume his tournament is over, and it’s a real bummer for the LA Kings, who just swung big on a trade for Artemi Panarin, too.
The game was close at points, and Switzerland had their chances to close the lead. In the end, Canada was too deep and ended up outshooting the Swiss 39-25 as they broke the proverbial dam and comfortably won the game when it was all said and done.
Post-Game Notes
– Cale Makar led Canada with 21:55 ice time, way ahead of anyone else. The next highest on the team was Thomas Harley at 18:13, for reference. Mark Stone led all forwards with 16:58 while McDavid played just 14:22.
– McDavid is up to six points through two games in these Olympics, and he also knocked a Swiss defenseman out of the game tonight. He is flying and buzzsawing players at the same time. The record for most points in an Olympics is 11 (Saku Koivu and Teemu Selanne). We’ll see how hard McDavid pushes against France, but breaking the record is obviously on the table. Perhaps against France, if he really wanted to!
– In the second period, Sam Bennett almost ended Nico Hischier’s season when he lined him up in the middle of the ice. Hischier just stepped aside and took a high stick that went uncalled for his troubles, to boot. Fans started throwing beer on the ice during the play due to the non-call, leading to some chaos. Bennett has been a physical force so far, and even without producing much of anything, he still manages to impact the game. He played just 10:33 while Tom Wilson was under 10 minutes (with an early assist); both of those figures feel too low. Against most of these teams, it won’t really matter, but against the US, Canada will need the physicality against the American defense.
– Logan Thompson was really good, but I can’t imagine there’s much of a controversy after the Jordan Binnington shutout to start the tournament. It’s clearly Binnington’s net; it just remains a question of whether he turns back into NHL regular-season Binnington at an inopportune time.
– I understand the temptation to continue to load up the Celebrini – McDavid – MacKinnon line, but the Hagel – Suzuki – Wilson unit that was created in its wake wasn’t particularly strong, and it’s an easy — almost Leafy — trap to just load up and play the top guys together at the expense of the rest of the lineup.
– Seth Jarvis showed his wheels and created a few chances in his tournament debut, but it’s also hard to imagine he’s seriously taking Brad Marchand’s spot in the lineup when it matters.
– Two games in, Canada looks really good. There will always be things to clean up, but a fair perspective is needed: they played two reasonably good teams and handled both fairly easily. As I think most of us know already, this is about building to play the US at some point.
Game Highlights: Team Canada 5 vs. Team Switzerland 1