Canada vs USA projected lines for 4 Nations championship game

Posted on

The biggest game in international hockey over a decade has arrived.

Team Canada will face off against the United States in the championship game of the 4 Nations tournament tonight (8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST on Sportsnet) in Boston. This represents a rematch from last weekend’s electric round-robin game between these two countries that started with three fights in nine seconds.

The Americans got the 3-1 victory in that game, but that result will quickly be forgotten if they can’t do the same tonight. A war of words has broken out between the two teams in the lead-up to this final matchup.

Of course, the USA’s Tkachuk brothers have been at the forefront of the war of words, questioning if the Canadian players actually like one another. Canada’s Brandon Hagel, on the other side of things, accused the Tkachuks of playing for the cameras rather than the flag.

Each country has been dealing with their fair share of injury woes throughout the tournament, but we finally have an idea of what the projected lineups will be.

Here is who is expected to suit up for tonight’s big game.

Canada

Forwards

Brayden Point – Connor McDavid – Mark Stone
Sidney Crosby – Nathan MacKinnon – Sam Reinhart
Brandon Hagel – Anthony Cirelli – Mitch Marner
Brad Marchand – Sam Bennett – Seth Jarvis

Defence

Devon Toews – Cale Makar
Josh Morrissey – Colton Parayko
Travis Sanheim – Drew Doughty

Starting goalie

Jordan Binnington

Canada did not ice a full practice for the morning skate ahead of tonight’s championship game, but we do have a good idea about how their lineup will look. This is based on Canada’s lines from Wednesday morning’s practice, which were reported by TSN’s Claire Hanna.

Team Canada head coach Jon Cooper met with the media this morning, where he confirmed that Seth Jarvis will be replacing Travis Konecny. It’s not clear exactly where Jarvis will play, but considering Konecny was taking reps on the fourth line, it’s likely that is where the Carolina Hurricanes youngster will play tonight.

Cale Makar, who didn’t play against USA in the round robin, is expected to play tonight. Jordan Binnington is expected to start in goal, as he has done for all of Canada’s previous games in this tournament.

USA

Forwards

Jake Guentzel – Auston Matthews – Jack Hughes
Brady Tkachuk – Jack Eichel – Matthew Tkachuk
J.T. Miller – Dylan Larkin – Matthew Boldy
Brock Nelson – Vincent Trocheck – Chris Kreider

Defence

Jaccob Slavin – Brock Faber
Zack Werenski – Jake Sanderson
Noah Hanifin – Adam Fox

Starting goalie

Connor Hellebuyck

The Americans have had a slew of injury concerns throughout this tournament, but it appears they will only be missing one player going into tonight.

USA will be without defenceman Charlie McAvoy due to an upper-body injury, and it looks like they will instead have Jake Sanderson take his spot on a pairing with Zack Werenski. There were also some concerns over the health of Auston Matthews and both the Tkachuk brothers. American head coach Mike Sullivan said all three of those players will be available tonight.

These were the USA lines that Hanna reported at practice yesterday.

In terms of lineup changes, outside of McAvoy, it does look like  Winnipeg Jets sniper Kyle Connor will sit out the final. He was on the ice for a bit extra this morning and was skating in Brady’s spot at Wednesday’s practice. This points to him being a healthy scratch.

This would appear to give a spot for Chris Kreider on the USA’s fourth line alongside New York Rangers teammate Vincent Trochek and New York Islanders forward Brock Nelson.

Connor Hellebuyck is the obvious choice in net after having put up two strong games against Finland and Canada in the round-robin. He was given a break against Sweden on Monday, but he has been the American’s de facto starting goalie throughout the tournament.

Source

Related Posts