Canada on final vs. USA: We can beat those guys
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Greg Wyshynski
It’s the rematch fans craved and Canada’s 5-3 win over Finland on Monday afternoon clinched it: another battle with Team USA in the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off championship game Thursday night in Boston.
“The last thing we wanted to do was go home today. We’d love to play the Americans again. We feel like we could beat those guys. We plan on playing a little better this time,” said Canada’s Nathan MacKinnon, who had two goals in the win.
The Americans’ 3-1 win over Canada on Saturday night was the talk of the sports world thanks to the raucous atmosphere in Montreal, three fights in the opening nine seconds of the game and thrilling play befitting this “best on best” tournament. The victory clinched a spot in the 4 Nations title game for the U.S., before Canada set up the sequel with its regulation win Monday.
“The message we wanted to send is that it’s our time right now. Show that we’re not backing down,” said Team USA’s Matthew Tkachuk, who set a record for the earliest fight in an NHL international game against Canada.
“I didn’t hear him say that, but he’s trying to make some noise, which he likes to do,” Canada goalie Jordan Binnington said. “We’re just going to stick to our job here.”
Canada finished its job against Finland, although things got a little tense near the end. After conceding a 4-0 lead, Finland scored three goals in the last 7 minutes of the game before Sidney Crosby‘s empty-netter ended the comeback and sent Canada to the championship final. The U.S. lost 2-1 to Sweden on Monday night in a game rendered meaningless by Canada’s victory.
Crosby relished the chance to play the U.S. again.
“You look at the last game and the intensity … both teams got to know each other pretty well, pretty quickly. It’ll be a great challenge,” the Pittsburgh Penguins captain said.
Canada entered the 4 Nations Face-Off as the favorite. ESPN BET has the Americans favored in the championship game (-125).
“I don’t care who’s favored or who’s not. We came here to win this,” Canada coach Jon Cooper said. “I’m really looking forward to the game. It’s why we came here. Regardless if other people think we’re underdogs, everybody in that room thinks we have a really, really good chance to win.”
Besides the stakes being higher, there will be two big differences in this rematch. Canada will have star defenseman Cale Makar in its lineup after he sat out the game against the U.S. because of an illness. He returned to play a game-high 23 minutes, 57 seconds against Finland.
“That’s obviously huge,” Crosby said. “He plays all situations and he’s so good back there. Obviously gave us a big boost.”
The Americans, meanwhile, will have home-ice advantage in front of a partisan crowd at TD Garden in Boston.
“Obviously we had our crowd behind us the last time and they got theirs in a couple of days, so it’s going to be exciting,” Canada’s Brayden Point said.
The environment will be an unusual one for Team Canada star Brad Marchand, who is also captain of the Boston Bruins.
“At the end of the day, I’ve been booed everywhere. So I’m not too worried about it,” he joked Monday.
MacKinnon said Canada can’t give the U.S. the chances they gave its opponent last Saturday.
“I just think they’re so dangerous. Not a lot was really going on for either team and we kind of gave them a couple looks. They have so much talent that they’re going to score,” he said. “All the best players in the league are sharing the same ice and the shots are like 20-20. So it just shows that how tight everyone’s checking right now. I just think any opportunity we want to make them earn and not give them free chances.”
Cooper downplayed the idea that Canada was motivated by a rematch with the Americans more than a 4 Nations championship.
“Even if the U.S. wasn’t in the final … we want in this. We came here for this purpose and now it’s ‘win one more game.’ It just happens to be against the team that beat us after the fireworks that went off on Saturday night,” he said. “It should be a pretty good made-for-TV event.”
NASCAR driver Katherine Legge said she has been receiving “hate mail” and “death threats” from auto racing fans after she was involved in a crash that collected veteran driver Kasey Kahne during the Xfinity Series race last weekend at Rockingham.
Legge, who has started four Indy 500s but is a relative novice in stock cars, added during Tuesday’s episode of her “Throttle Therapy” podcast that “the inappropriate social media comments I’ve received aren’t just disturbing, they are unacceptable.”
“Let me be very clear,” the British driver said, “I’m here to race and I’m here to compete, and I won’t tolerate any of these threats to my safety or to my dignity, whether that’s on track or off of it.”
Legge became the first woman in seven years to start a Cup Series race earlier this year at Phoenix. But her debut in NASCAR’s top series ended when Legge, who had already spun once, was involved in another spin and collected Daniel Suarez.
Her next start was the lower-level Xfinity race in Rockingham, North Carolina, last Saturday. Legge was good enough to make the field on speed but was bumped off the starting grid because of ownership points. Ultimately, she was able to take J.J. Yeley’s seat in the No. 53 car for Joey Gase Motorsports, which had to scramble at the last minute to prepare the car for her.
Legge was well off the pace as the leaders were lapping her, and when she entered Turn 1, William Sawalich got into the back of her car. That sent Legge spinning, and Kahne had nowhere to go, running into her along the bottom of the track.
“I gave [Sawalich] a lane and the reason the closing pace looks so high isn’t because I braked midcorner. I didn’t. I stayed on my line, stayed doing my speed, which obviously isn’t the speed of the leaders because they’re passing me,” Legge said. “He charged in a bit too hard, which is the speed difference you see. He understeered up a lane and into me, which spun me around.”
The 44-year-old Legge has experience in a variety of cars across numerous series. She made seven IndyCar starts for Dale Coyne Racing last year, and she has raced for several teams over more than a decade in the IMSA SportsCar series.
She has dabbled in NASCAR in the past, too, starting four Xfinity races during the 2018 season and another two years ago.
“I have earned my seat on that race track,” Legge said. “I’ve worked just as hard as any of the other drivers out there, and I’ve been racing professionally for the last 20 years. I’m 100 percent sure that … the teams that employed me — without me bringing any sponsorship money for the majority of those 20 years — did not do so as a DEI hire, or a gimmick, or anything else. It’s because I can drive a race car.”
Legge believes the vitriol she has received on social media is indicative of a larger issue with women in motorsports.
“Luckily,” she said, “I have been in tougher battles than you guys in the comment sections.”
Legge has received plenty of support from those in the racing community. IndyCar driver Marco Andretti clapped back at one critic on social media who called Legge “unproven” in response to a post about her history at the Indy 500.
“It’s wild to me how many grown men talk badly about badass girls like this,” Andretti wrote on X. “Does it make them feel more manly from the couch or something?”
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