MILAN \u2014 What\u2019s it like being on the ice when Nathan MacKinnon joins Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini on the same line?<\/p>\n
Cale Makar pondered the question and broke into a grin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to remember that I got to play a little defense, I guess,\u201d quipped Team Canada\u2019s stud defenseman.<\/p>\n
He was kidding, of course. But like anyone else in the world, despite his own superstar status, he marvels at what those three look like together.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so exciting,\u201d Makar said. \u201cObviously all those guys can move around really well. The thing when they\u2019re out there together, they\u2019re still getting to the net and penetrating to the middle. It\u2019s not like they\u2019re just playing on the outside. It\u2019s cool for a line like that. It\u2019s fun to watch, especially on the ice and on the bench. Just hope to hopefully be part of that sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sidney Crosby\u2019s eyes lit up when asked the same question.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fast. The speed, it\u2019s amazing to see them together,\u201d said the Canadian captain. \u201cObviously Mack\u2019s seeing the ice really well. He\u2019s creating a lot himself. It\u2019s fun. Seeing those guys in practice or in games, up close, seeing what they do and the speed that they do it at. Knowing everyone on the ice solely wants to find a way to shut them down or limit their chances, they work so hard. It\u2019s fun to see them do their thing for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
So if anyone is keeping score at home, that\u2019s the best defenseman in the world and a top-five all-time NHL player running out of superlatives for the Mach3 line (stick tap to Vancouver Canucks fan @ejmichele on X for coming up with that nickname).<\/p>\n
Head coach Jon Cooper actually went back to his original Day 1 lineup to start the game, meaning MacKinnon between Brandon Hagel and Nick Suzuki and McDavid centering Celebrini and Tom Wilson.<\/p>\n
But by the end of the second period, for whatever reason, in a game against hockey minnow France, there was Cooper putting Mach3 back together for a few shifts. Their first shift together immediately drew the Celebrini penalty shot.<\/p>\n
By the third period, however, all the lines were restored back to their base setting.<\/p>\n
So the positive way to look at it is that Cooper has a super tool in his toolbox and knows he can reach for it come the medal round if he needs a spark.<\/p>\n
The glass-half-empty way to look at it, if there\u2019s such a thing for a team that outscored the opposition 20-3 in the preliminary round, is that perhaps there\u2019s still a little indecision about how to most effectively bring out the best in his top players.<\/p>\n
The most consistent line has been Crosby between Mitch Marner and Mark Stone. That line will never be touched. But despite having five points in three games, there\u2019s an argument to be made that we haven\u2019t seen the top-shelf version of MacKinnon quite yet. He\u2019s been good, of course, but that sky-high standard of his which backs off defenders with aggressive speed, I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s been as prevalent as normal. Not quite as explosive as normal.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also the fact that Suzuki himself hasn\u2019t been all-world yet, either. So what\u2019s the confidence level of him back at center between Hagel and Wilson when the Mach3 thing is happening?<\/p>\n
Either way, Hagel for one wasn\u2019t fussed about the lines changing mid-game. He likes the flexibility the team has with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re just trying to learn,\u201d Hagel said. \u201cObviously (if) you\u2019re going to put Connor and Nate and Celebrini together, a lot of good things are probably going to happen. Yeah, we\u2019re just trying to build as a team, get better every game and have that versatility to switch the lines if needed. Obviously it showed last game it worked and today it did as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear what makes the most sense: MacKinnon back at center with Hagel and Suzuki \u2014 I\u2019m not sure that line has really gelled yet \u2014 or going with the Mach3 unit but creating more of a top-six, bottom-six lineup.<\/p>\n
Cooper was noncommittal about it after the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust got to make sure, there\u2019s a lot of players who want the puck and there\u2019s only one puck out there,\u201d said the Canadian head coach. \u201cYou have to get to the interior, so they were starting to do that a little bit more. We\u2019ll see what happens. It depends on who we play and matchups.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of which brings me back to a conversation I had with Mike Keenan last February on the eve of the 4 Nations Face-Off. Midway through the three-game final of the 1987 Canada Cup, head coach Keenan put Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux together and played them as much as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t overplay your best players,\u201d Keenan said. \u201cParticularly the fact it\u2019s a very short tournament. And the results are immediate. It\u2019s a little bit different than the Canada Cup that way (much longer event). But in my opinion, and Jon Cooper has a lot of experience and a winning pedigree, he\u2019s going to be able to read the bench and read the game as it\u2019s going along.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in my history of coaching, I never hesitated about playing my best players, that was just a given,\u201d Keenan added.<\/p>\n
I asked Cooper before the 4 Nations about the \u201987 Canada Cup and how Keenan deployed 66 and 99, and whether he could see himself pulling out the nuclear option at some point in the 4 Nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I\u2019ve been on record saying the \u201987 Canada Cup was arguably the greatest hockey and three-game segment you\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d began Cooper. \u201cBut I think today\u2019s players are different than those players back then. We don\u2019t 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 \u201987 and the first forward, I think was a lot farther than the gap between the 12th forward in today\u2019s teams and the first forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s just weapons all over the ice. It was super cool being on the ice, being at ice level, and getting to watch what was going on. There\u2019s 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. But we\u2019ll have to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crosby and MacKinnon played together for long stretches at the 4 Nations, but only a few times did MacKinnon and McDavid get paired in that event.<\/p>\n
One year later on a much more important stage, Cooper has done it for stretches twice in two games. It\u2019s tantalizing. The Celebrini aspect of it makes it even more alluring.<\/p>\n
So the question is, what now? Does Cooper start Wednesday\u2019s quarterfinal game with it or go back to the base setting? I can assure you that\u2019s a conversation the coaching staff will have over the next few days.<\/p>\n
The superstar most affected is MacKinnon, who goes from his natural center in one instance to playing wing in the other. But he seems quite relaxed about it all either way.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, definitely ready for whatever,\u201d MacKinnon said after Sunday\u2019s game. \u201cLike I said, I\u2019ll play with anybody. You know, it\u2019s fun playing with every single guy on this team. So, it\u2019s pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
My guess? Cooper keeps the nuclear option in his back pocket for when he absolutely needs it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 What\u2019s it like being on the ice when Nathan MacKinnon joins Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,54125,4,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-459220","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"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116077182513002016","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459220","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=459220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}