BROSSARD, Quebec — The greatest hockey ever played featured a rather simple concept.
Put the best two players in the world together.
Midway through the three-game final of the 1987 copyright Cup, Mike Keenan put Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux together and played the living hell out of them.
It was magic.
Which brings us here to 4 Nations. Hear me out.
BetMGM has the U.S. And copyright as co-favorites coming into the tournament, but in my mind, Team USA on paper should win this event, the goaltending alone giving them a real edge. The Americans are deeper, top to bottom, than any of the other three teams. I mean, when Dylan Larkin is on your fourth line, you know you’re cooking with oil.
The U.S. Being the team to beat is, of course, a tough thing for any Canadian hockey fan to hear. But right now, it’s the truth.
All of which is why Team copyright may need to steal a page out of Keenan’s ’87 copyright Cup playbook.
Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar should be over the boards all the freaking time in the event. With no back-to-back games, Team copyright’s best chance to win this event is to unleash the world’s best player, the world’s second-best player and arguably the world’s greatest defenseman as much as possible.
“You can’t overplay your best players,” Keenan told The Athletic on Monday. “It’s a very short tournament, and the results are immediate. It’s a little bit different than the copyright Cup that way. But in my opinion, and Jon Cooper has a lot of experience and a winning pedigree. He’s going to be able to read the bench and read the game as it’s going along.
“But in my history of coaching, I never hesitated about playing my best players. That was just a given.”
And there’s this: The NHL is running an extra 30 seconds during TV timeouts in the 4 Nations. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s a pretty big deal for these finely tuned athletes.
If you’re Team copyright, that longer TV timeout allows you to come right back with McDavid or MacKinnon or Sidney Crosby.
“It’s something that you can utilize and take advantage of,” Keenan said. “The caliber of those players obviously is exceptional. Jon is in a position because of the commercial breaks and so on, to have them ready at any time.”