Fight night: U.S., Canada open tilt with 3 brawls

MONTREAL — It took less than nine seconds for Team USA to record three fights in their 3-1 win over Canada in the 4 Nations Face-Off showdown at Bell Centre on Saturday night.

Unsurprisingly, Matthew and Brady Tkachuk were the ringleaders.

The brothers — who stole the show in Thursday’s game against Finland with a combined four goals five points — took it a step further on Saturday by coordinating with teammate J.T. Miller to try and put Canada on its heels off the hop.

“We needed to send a message,” Matthew Tkachuk said after the win. “We’re here in Montreal on a Saturday night. We want it to be our time, and that message started right from the get-go.”

And so, the hockey rivalry renewed with Matthew dropping the gloves against Canada’s Brandon Hagel off the opening faceoff, igniting a sold-out crowd already fit to burst. Tkachuk and Hagel are rivals in the NHL as well, playing for the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning, respectively.

Theirs was the fastest fight to start an NHL international game, topping the previous record of 20 seconds in 1996 when Canada’s Keith Primeau and Claude Lemieux fought Team USA’s Keith Tkachuk and Bill Guerin in the World Cup of Hockey. Guerin is the U.S. general manager in the 4 Nations Face-Off, and Tkachuk is father to Matthew and Brady — although Matthew denied that his father’s history influenced his and Brady’s actions in the game.

Because one second after Matthew Tkachuk went to the penalty box, Brady Tkachuk fought his older brother’s Florida teammate, Sam Bennett, off the night’s second faceoff. Matthew Tkachuk slammed his arms against the glass of the box in support as it played out.

Six seconds later, Miller fought Colton Parayko after the two jostled in front of the Canadian net. Miller also received a cross-checking penalty on the play, giving Canada the first power play of the game.

No matter to the parties involved, though. For them it was no accident the game started that way.

“There was a little discussion during the day,” Brady Tkachuk said about the fights, with his brother imploring him to “tell the truth,” while they sat together at the podium.

“Yeah, there was a group chat going on today,” Brady Tkachuk said. “We just reaffirmed we were going to do that. I think Matthew’s fight to start it off was just such an energy boost. I think I was more excited, more nervous for my own. And then for Millsy to cap it off against a big guy like that, he did a great job. It was a pretty awesome experience.”

The NHL hadn’t had a fight in an international tournament it had hosted since the 2004 World Cup of Hockey. Miller was just as pleased as the Tkachuks to be part of the plan.

“That was pretty fun,” he said. “That was the coolest experience I’ve probably had on the ice, one of them. To hear the building like that, it’s something you’ll never forget. There’s a lot of bad blood, but at the same time, tons of respect for the other team.”

That’s what drove Hagel not to deny Matthew his request to drop the mitts.

“I’m not backing down,” Hagel said. “A little bit of the talk was these guys are going to take over the Canadian way, but I’m not going to let it happen.”

The exuberance on both sides wasn’t lost one anyone in the building — least of all the teams’ coaches. Canada’s Jon Cooper called the start of the game “mayhem” and credited “two passionate teams” for the intense opening.

Team USA’s coach Mike Sullivan thought the way each country responded showed how important the outcome of this tournament is to the ones involved.

“I just think it’s very indicative of what this means to the players,” he said. “There’s two teams out there that are very competitive that have a ton of pride for their respective teams and countries. For me when you have an investment in trying to win like the way that it occurred, I think that’s an indication of it. What an incredible hockey game.”

The U.S.-Canada game at 4 Nations was years in the making. The NHL hadn’t participated in a “best on best” tournament since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. An entire generation of star players are representing their countries for the first time in such a tournament, from Canada’s Connor McDavid — who scored the lone goal for his nation on Saturday — and Nathan MacKinnon to Team USA’s Auston Matthews and Jack Eichel.

The showdown took on an added dimension due to recent political tensions between the U.S. and Canada. President Donald Trump threatened — and subsequently enforced — significant tariffs on Canadian imports. Trump has also repeatedly made references to his proposal of Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state.

The U.S national anthem was booed by NHL fans in Canadian cities leading up to the tournament. There was a smattering of boos before the Americans’ win over Finland on Thursday, as the public address announcer at Bell Centre asked for the anthems to be respected. But before Saturday night’s game, the fans booed the introduction of the U.S. players by Olympic figure skating legend Michelle Kwan and loudly booed the anthem.

With the win, the U.S. secured its place in the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game in Boston on Thursday night.

“Getting a win here on a Saturday night, that puts us in the finals, that’s a pretty neat feeling,” Brady Tkachuk told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan in his postgame, on-ice interview. “I feel like they’re a lot of unhappy people here, especially in Montreal, a place that isn’t my favorite.”

When Team USA does take part in the final, Matthew Tkachuk fully intends to dress. That looked in question when he appeared to suffer an injury late in the game on Saturday. He played just three shifts in the third period and sat out the final 12:36. Sullivan subsequently said Tkachuk is being evaluated for a lower-body injury and wouldn’t say whether he’d be held out of the USA’s game against Sweden on Monday.

Tkachuk, though, downplayed any nagging issue on Saturday.

“No concern at all,” he said of a potential ailment. “Just going to enjoy this win tonight. Other than Game 7 last year (when his Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup), this has been the highlight of my hockey career. I’m just going to enjoy it with the guys.”

Additional reporting from ESPN Senior NHL Writer Greg Wyshynski.