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<\/p>\nMILAN \u2014 Less than three minutes into Saturday\u2019s group-stage game, Brady Tkachuk found himself battling for the puck in the corner with Denmark\u2019s Alexander True, a massive, marble block of a former NHLer. Tkachuk bumped True to try to get him off the puck. Bumped him again. Spun off him. Tangled him up. Shoved him into the boards. Briefly bear-hugged him and mashed him into the glass. Gave him a forearm shiver in the back. Another one. Another one. Even threw something of a rabbit punch.<\/p>\n
Tkachuk was going to move this guy off the puck if it took all night. It almost did.<\/p>\n
Tkachuk is an extremely gifted hockey player, big and strong and good around the net, yes, but more skilled than he gets credit for. You don\u2019t put up three straight 30-goal seasons without having a ton of talent. But Tkachuk\u2019s not a lock for 100 points every season. He is, however, pretty much a lock for 100 penalty minutes.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s that other stuff that makes Tkachuk special. The way he battled True early in a game in which the U.S. fell behind early. The way he finished the first period with his stick wedged in Oliver Lauridsen\u2019s midsection and his fist planted in Lauridsen\u2019s face as they battled in front of the net. The way he celebrated \u2014 all fist-pumps and finger-points and expletives and smiles \u2014 after he scored a desperately needed goal midway through the game with the Americans somehow trailing the Danes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Tkachuk said of the impetus behind his fiery celebration following a 6-3 Team USA victory. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty cool feeling scoring for your country.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s that, too. The way he speaks about wearing the red, white and blue, the obvious joy and passion with which he\u2019s playing in these Olympics. There\u2019s no letter stitched on Tkachuk\u2019s sweater, but there\u2019s one etched on his heart all the same. This is his team, maybe more than anybody else\u2019s. That Tkachuk DNA \u2014 his and his brother Matthew\u2019s \u2014 is this team\u2019s DNA. For better or worse, Team USA always sees itself in the mold of the 1980 Olympians and the 1996 World Cup champions \u2014 scrappy, feisty, physical, pains in the ass.<\/p>\n
And nobody\u2019s a bigger pain in the ass than Brady Tkachuk.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a beast,\u201d U.S. coach Mike Sullivan said. \u201cHis energy is contagious. He\u2019s so vocal on the bench, in between periods. He\u2019s a positive guy. He drags everybody into the fight, literally and figuratively. And that\u2019s what we love about him. He\u2019s an elite player. I think his hockey sense is underrated and flies under the radar because I think when people think of Brady, they think of his brute and his brawn. And he certainly brings that element. But I don\u2019t think he gets the credit for how intelligent he is as a hockey player. He\u2019s a terrific player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tkachuk is all energy, all the time. He fights for every inch, every shift. Say what you will about his style, the way he skirts the line between playing hard and playing dirty, and his sometimes abrasive attitude. The fact is, Tkachuk does \u2014 as you repeatedly hear his teammates and coaches say \u2014 drag his team into the fight.<\/p>\n
And, good grief, did the Americans need dragging on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
For the first 30 minutes of this game, Tkachuk looked like he was playing in the Olympic Games in Milan, throwing his body around and charging after every loose puck as if the fate of his nation depended on it. The rest of his teammates looked like they were playing in a September exhibition game in Milwaukee, coasting and clumsily coughing up pucks. Zach Werenski threw the puck away on an attempted rim and moments later kicked the puck past Jeremy Swayman, his own goalie, just 1:40 into the game. Swayman waved at a 95-foot shot that somehow beat him cleanly 10 minutes later. Matthews was tentative early on, big Tage Thompson was repeatedly pushed off the puck, and the rest of the team was mostly standing around watching. Other than a brief flash from Matt Boldy, who grabbed his own rebound and scored on a wraparound, the Americans looked disjointed and, worse, disengaged.<\/p>\n
It was one thing for Denmark to lead 2-1 midway through the first period, especially given the fluky nature of the second goal. It was quite another thing for Denmark to still be leading 2-1 midway through the second period. This is the best, deepest and most talented American team ever assembled. Denmark, meanwhile, didn\u2019t even start its No. 1 goalie, Frederik Andersen. Hockey\u2019s fluky, yes, but not that fluky.<\/p>\n
It was an unacceptable performance on this stage, in this tournament, after all the hype and histrionics that led the NHL back to the Olympics after 12 years. Just as it was an unacceptable coaching blunder by Sullivan to dress Connor Hellebuyck \u2014 Sunday\u2019s starter against Germany \u2014 as Swayman\u2019s backup instead of Jake Oettinger. Swayman was clearly rattled and nervous in the early going, but Sullivan couldn\u2019t pull him because he had to save Hellebuyck. In hindsight, we can all laugh about Swayman\u2019s gaffe \u2014 he joked he was colorblind, so the unusually dark boards weren\u2019t to blame for him losing the puck. Hey, he won, that\u2019s all that matters. But at the time, it seemed catastrophic. And it was clearly affecting the entire team.<\/p>\n
Then Tkachuk did what Tkachuk does \u2014 he dragged his team into the fight. His one-timer off a Jack Eichel faceoff win at 9:26 of the second \u2014 and his joyous celebration \u2014 finally seemed to wake up the heavily pro-American crowd and his teammates. Fifty-seven seconds later, Eichel scored off his own faceoff win. By the time Noah Hanifin made it 4-2 seven minutes later, Team USA looked like Team USA again. Another Swayman softie brought Denmark back within a goal with just 2.6 seconds left in the second period, but it still felt academic. The Americans had settled down and ratcheted it up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Brady Tkachuk celebrates his goal during Team USA\u2019s preliminary round game against Denmark on Saturday. (RvS.Media \/ Monika Majer \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Matthews re-engaged, teeing up a Jake Guentzel one-timer to make it 5-3, then taking on four Danes all by himself in a goalmouth skirmish. Jack Hughes made it 6-3 later in the period, and the pressure release was palpable inside Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. Tkachuk was the one who loosened the valve.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of our big dogs,\u201d Swayman said of Tkachuk. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of that on this team, and he\u2019s such a natural leader. He is a powerful human being and he plays that way, and it just (gives) confidence to the entire group.\u201d<\/p>\n
A 6-3 victory over Denmark isn\u2019t terribly impressive, and it won\u2019t help the Americans catch Canada for the top seed in terms of goal differential.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s a hell of a lot better than a loss. And Tkachuk was the catalyst. He always seems to be. The Danes were coming for him all game, and he gleefully welcomed them every time. Even with the game well in hand, he was right in the middle of the action, getting into one last violent scrum behind Swayman\u2019s net with five minutes to go.<\/p>\n
Tkachuk wasn\u2019t at his best, either \u2014 he was frustrated with how his puck play was going, so he leaned on what he does best, what he can always do. The hands weren\u2019t working, so maybe the fists \u2014 and forearms, and elbows, and hips, and his entire torso \u2014 would.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I pride myself on,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I feel like I\u2019m not playing well with the puck and making plays, I can fall back on that and try to make an impact physically to get the hands going.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s gold or bust for the Americans, but they have a long way to go and a short amount of time to get there. The Olympics is longer than the 4 Nations Face-Off was, but it\u2019s not nearly as long as an NHL season. There\u2019s no easing in, no feeling things out. The chemistry has to be instant, the structure set, the intensity unrelenting.<\/p>\n
Squint and you can see it, what a finished product would look like, a team that can hang with a line of Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini, that can match the depth of a team with Sidney Crosby as its third center, one that can outwork and outmuscle Canada and Sweden in a do-or-die game. But it\u2019s not there yet. Not by a long shot.<\/p>\n
Tkachuk only sees the positive in that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s good about our group,\u201d Tkachuk said. \u201cWe\u2019re just scratching at it right now, and it\u2019s going to work out that we\u2019re going to peak at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n
When you watch the Americans against Latvia and Denmark, you have doubts. But when you hear Brady Tkachuk say that \u2014 when you watch him celebrate a goal, when you see him rag-dolling a 6-foot-5 opponent in the corner, when you notice how his teammates follow his lead \u2014 it\u2019s tough not to believe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Less than three minutes into Saturday\u2019s group-stage game, Brady Tkachuk found himself battling for the puck…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,54125,4,2602,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-458406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-olympics","12":"tag-ottawa-senators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116072012332469320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}