Biggest Takeaways from CAN-SWE

I was rock hard from the pre-game show until the final whistle in overtime, and here’s a few reasons why…

The best-on-best tournament is back and there are no bad things in the world at this moment right now. We get to see hockey‘s best go at it in a four team round robin tournament all for the prize of bragging rights for their country.

Tonight in Montreal, we have the opening match of the 4 nations tournament between our beloved home country of Canada and the triple crown opponents in Sweden. Here are some of the takeaways I took from Game 1 of this tournament.

1) CANADA’S JERSEY TURN ME ON

I mean, look at these bad boys, the Canadian military should be wearing these on the front lines to strike fear into their enemies. Most non-traditiona, regular season jerseys, like All-Star jerseys usually have got awful designs, but whoever designed these team Canada ones certainly knew what they were doing, and highlighted the exact look our country stands for.

If a company out there reading this article wants to sponsor Big Screen Sports they can do so by buying me one of the jerseys and you will have my business 100%.

2) HOCKEY TOURNAMENT OVERTIME IS AS GOOD AS HEROIN (I'm guessing of course...)

The hockey gods were looking down on us tonight as they blessed us with an incredible opening night overtime Canadian victory that got everyone in the nation on their feet.

You had the Montreal crowd chanting Crosby as he skated through the neutral zone as elegantly as he has his entire career, having a nice drop pass to Maple Leafs Mitch Marner, who roof-daddied that puck, and had the place absolutely bumping.

My biggest takeaway from this specific takeaway is how Jordan Binnington reminded all of us of his playoff pedigree and Stanley Cup championship ring he’s probably busting out in the locker room after that stellar, lockdown performance in this overtime period. Sure, he looked a little shaky during the game, but all it took was the lights to shine on him in overtime for him to truly show us what to expect going forward in this tournament.

And yes, people are gonna say that Canada got away with a too many men call, but fuck it. Who the hell cares, the stripes are the stripes, they blow calls in the regular season, and they are gonna blow calls in the 4 Nations tournament. Just be happy we got away with one and it did didn’t ruin the overtime.

3) CANADA GOALTENDING IS LESS OF A WORRY

After Sweden went 15 minutes+ in the 1st period of this hockey game without a shot on net, I think we all had a sigh of relief when worry about our potential weakness part of our roster in our goaltending. This isn’t a shot at Binnington or Hill who are both Stanley Cup champions, but it’s safe to say they’re not Hellebuyck between the pipes, at least this year.

Canada’s defensive core built a wall that even Donald Trump would be proud of. Our forwards were fun enough to watch, but us real puck heads took a shining to what potential this d-core has.

4) GIVE SWEDEN PROPS FOR IT’S DEFENCE

We just talked about how Canada’s defence shut down Sweden forwards for the first half of the game, but people are not talking about how this group only had 7 shots in the 1st period.

Sweden is the 3rd best team in this tournament, but I give them props for making this a more competitive game than most people thought I’m sure beforehand. Let’s just hope they can go out there and beat USA in a shocking fashion, led by their defense.

5) SHEA THEODORE INJURY

Early on in the game Langley's own Shea Theodore got his right wrist crushed up against the boards on a normal looking hit. He skated to the bench, and then next whistle skated off into the tunnel and did not return to the game. As mentioned earlier in the article, this Canada’s defensive core is built as a champion, and we hope that he’s able to return Saturday to the USA game so we have our best versus their best. You never like seeing injuries on any team, and hope he’s not out for the rest of the tournament as that would be a dagger for a man like him trying to win a tournament for his home country.

Flyers’ Travis Sanheim is Canada’s seventh defenceman so if Theodore can’t go Saturday look for Sanheim to suit up.

P.S: Teams have to be under 18 healthy skaters to add replacements. So it would take more injuries — which no one wants to see.

3 STARS

1. SIDNEY CROSBY: 3 ASSISTS

2. MITCH MARNER: OT WINNER

3. LUCAS RAYMOND: 2 ASSISTS