MILAN \u2014 Team Canada wants to accentuate its balance at the Olympics.<\/p>\n
We got a heavy dose of it Sunday as Canada got goals from nine different players in a 10-2 dismantling of France to close out the preliminary round-robin portion of the Olympic tournament.<\/p>\n
The win gives Canada a perfect 3-0-0 record in the round-robin and a plus-17 goal differential with 20 goals scored and three goals against. Pending the United States game against Germany later Sunday evening, that puts Canada in an excellent position to claim the top seed in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
The United States enters its game against Germany with a plus-7 goal differential. A regulation-time win would also give the U.S. a 3-0-0 record, but it would have to beat Germany by 10 goals to claim the top seed because that would mean the United States would finish with more goals scored than Canada, which is the next tiebreak.<\/p>\n
The second seed is likely to draw Sweden in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
In an Olympic rarity, Canada forward Tom Wilson and France defenseman Pierre Crinon drew game misconducts for fighting in the third period. Earlier in the third, Crinon was given a minor penalty for interference after he hit Nathan MacKinnon in the head when he did not have the puck. MacKinnon stayed down on the ice for a few moments before making his way back to the bench, but he stayed in the game.<\/p>\n
MacKinnon, clearly still hot, was called for roughing on his next shift.<\/p>\n
Macklin Celebrini scored twice for Canada, including a penalty shot goal, while Wilson, Devon Toews, Mark Stone, Cale Makar, Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Bo Horvat and Brandon Hagel also scored.<\/p>\n
Floran Douay and Sacha Treille scored for France.<\/p>\n
Back to balance up front \u2026 to start<\/p>\n
Cooper enticed an entire country when he put Nathan MacKinnon with Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini late in the first period against Switzerland on Friday. It went counter to Cooper\u2019s stated pre-tournament desire to have balance up front with MacKinnon, McDavid and Crosby on separate lines, attacking teams with pace and skill.<\/p>\n
Cooper began the game against France with that same balanced look. McDavid, MacKinnon and Crosby all had a shift only 67 seconds into the game. But late in the second period, Cooper went back to McDavid between MacKinnon and Celebrini.<\/p>\n
When he did it on Friday, Celebrini scored on his second shift on that line. When he did it on Sunday, Celebrini drew a penalty shot on that initial shift and scored his third goal of the tournament. According to the NHL, Celebrini became the first Team Canada player to score on a penalty shot at an Olympics with NHL participation.<\/p>\n
This option appears to be something Cooper is experimenting with in the event that, later in the tournament, Canada needs a jolt of offense. Cooper began the third period with his original line combinations, with McDavid scoring right off the initial faceoff with assists from his usual linemates, Celebrini and Tom Wilson.<\/p>\n
If we had to guess, the nuclear option of MacKinnon, McDavid and Celebrini will be something Cooper keeps in his back pocket to use strategically: offensive-zone faceoffs, late in periods, coming out of TV timeouts.<\/p>\n
So far, the switch has almost immediately produced a goal twice. It could come in handy when Team Canada actually needs one.<\/p>\n
Canada shuffles up the blue-line mix<\/p>\n
Josh Morrissey skated Sunday morning, which is a good sign for his potential return in this Olympic tournament. Head coach Jon Cooper said postgame Friday night that Morrissey was not ruled out of the tournament. But in the interim, Team Canada tried a second different option alongside Morrissey\u2019s regular defense partner, Colton Parayko. It was Thomas Harley\u2019s turn to skate on the second pairing, replacing Shea Theodore, who got first crack alongside Parayko in Friday night\u2019s game with Switzerland.<\/p>\n
Heading into the Olympics, the Canadian coaching staff had Devon Toews-Cale Makar and Morrissey-Parayko written in stone as the top four, so finding that right fit on the second pairing while Morrissey is out is a legitimate priority.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s because the coaching staff didn\u2019t quite like what they saw in the Theodore-Parayko fit or whether it\u2019s because Harley\u2019s excellent play is pushing him up in the lineup, either way, it meant breaking up the Harley-Drew Doughty pairing, which had been a thing dating back to 4 Nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love playing with him,\u201d Doughty said Friday postgame.<\/p>\n
Oh well!<\/p>\n
Doughty was paired up mostly with Travis Sanheim in Sunday\u2019s game, although Theodore was rotated in pretty regularly and played on the second power-play unit as the seventh defenseman.<\/p>\n
It will be interesting to see who comes out when Morrissey returns. Sanheim was the healthy scratch in the opener and Theodore, as mentioned, gets second power-play time, so that suggests it\u2019s probably Sanheim who comes out again.<\/p>\n
If Morrissey is back in time for Wednesday\u2019s quarterfinals, that\u2019s a major boost. The coaching staff, dating back to 4 Nations, likes to use the Morrissey-Parayko pairing as an important shutdown matchup duo. Team Canada will feel better having that regular pairing back for the do-or-die games.<\/p>\n
Binnington back in net, but was he convincing enough?<\/p>\n
Jordan Binnington was back in net on Sunday, which suggests that it\u2019s very likely his net for the rest of the Olympics. Although it\u2019s worth pointing out that he gave up two goals on just 14 shots against France and neither goal was a particularly good one to give up. He had a fat rebound on the first goal in the first period, and gave up a blast from long distance to Treille in the third period on a shot that probably shouldn\u2019t have gone in.<\/p>\n
Logan Thompson was very good in his start Friday night against Switzerland, but seemed to indicate in his postgame comments that he thought Binnington was going to be the guy the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
Binnington did pitch a shutout in the tournament-opener, but the Canadian coaching staff certainly would reserve the right to change their mind if they didn\u2019t like what they saw Sunday.<\/p>\n
Some perspective on the matchup<\/p>\n
As the only NHL player for France, Montreal Canadiens forward Alexandre Texier has a heavy burden. He wants to lead his team to victory, but knows how unlikely that is.<\/p>\n
He also has the advantage of not being in awe of the NHL stars on Team Canada because he faces them all the time.<\/p>\n
Or, he should.<\/p>\n
Texier was talking about how he was enjoying the experience of being an Olympian on Friday after France lost to the Czech Republic, how the athletes\u2019 village has been eye-opening for him, mingling with the world\u2019s best winter athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of athletes, a lot of sports,\u201d Texier said. \u201cI haven\u2019t had a lot of time to see other competitions, which I\u2019d like to do because that would be fun. Everyone\u2019s together, people are trading pins, everyone\u2019s talking, it\u2019s a totally different vibe from the world championships. It\u2019s only once every four years, so you want to take it in 100 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a competitor, I want to win, but I understand the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if there was a particular interaction with an athlete in the village that struck him, one that was memorable, Texier let out a little grin.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrosby,\u201d he said, almost sheepishly.<\/p>\n
Texier explained how the French team was walking around in the village earlier in the tournament when Team Canada walked by. They didn\u2019t stop to chat. They didn\u2019t interact in any way.<\/p>\n
They were simply breathing the same air.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a hockey legend. I\u2019m looking forward to playing Canada,\u201d Texier said. \u201cIt was pretty impressive for our team. You need to take this in; it might be the first and the last time for our whole team. For the guys who play in France, you realize how big this is; you\u2019re representing your country. So take in the experience and the game we have to win is our fourth game.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this game, France was doing more than breathing the same air. They were playing against players who took their breath away in the village.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Team Canada wants to accentuate its balance at the Olympics. We got a heavy dose of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,54125,4,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-459016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116076258494246213","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459016","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=459016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}