North America beats Sweden in OT, needs help to advance

Then he joked with North America teammate Auston Matthews that perhaps he shouldn’t have celebrated so hard since they still might be going home.

If Team North America wasn’t exciting enough at five-on-five, we got to see them play Sweden in 3-on-3 overtime in Wednesday’s big preliminary round matchup.

MacKinnon’s incredible goal came while the teams were playing three-on-three and capped off a razzle-dazzle play by North America.

(Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP). As fun as it is to watch, coaches live to squeeze the life out of free wheeling hockey.

It was the best on-ice moment of the World Cup of Hockey yet.

Nathan MacKinnon scored the victor 4:11 into overtime to give Team North America (2-1-0), made up of American and Canadian under-23 stars, a chance, but it still needs Team Russia to lose to Team Finland on Thursday to advance. That said, Jaroslav Halak looked unstoppable for Europe and the Canadians were able to put four past him in their round robin game.

The same might be true of Rielly, who became North America’s top defenceman after Ekblad suffered an upper-body injury in the first game against Finland.

Some believe USA Hockey has reached a point where it’s time to think outside the box.

US coach John Tortorella and players implied that the team would’ve had a different look if American players 23 and under were eligible for selection and not bound to Team North America. He’s won a Vezina, he’s won the Olympics with us. The Canadians outscored the Czechs, Americans and Europeans by a combined 14-3, trailing only once and for less than 2 minutes. While NA lost against Russian Federation, they played one of the most competitive and interesting games during that night. They’re three victories away from winning another best-on-best tournament in what might be their last chance.

The World Cup achieved big-event status in Toronto, with a mostly full arena and buzz around the city. Captain Henrik Sedin used hand motions to illustrate the roller coaster ride his team boarded when Europe laid the smackdown 10 days ago. “So we’ll try and maintain this type of hockey for a long time and every coach in the league is trying to do that”.

“For a young guy like me who’s never had the opportunity to play in the Olympics, I would say 100 per cent”, he said. They sport a good amount of depth at the forward position, including breakout players like Dylan Larkin (Detroit Red Wings), Jonathan Drouin (Tampa Bay Lightning) and Johnny Gaudreau (Calgary Flames). The problem at the World Cup was that a lot of them were playing for Team North America. Even the most grizzled old-school fundamental hockey people had to appreciate the way McDavid, MacKinnon, 2016 top pick Auston Matthews and Co. played.

“Honestly, for me in four years, I definitely hope I can represent my country”, McDavid said. Canada coach Mike Babcock called it “a great way to showcase the NHL” of the future. North America coach Todd McLellan has let his horses run. “We’ll see. They obviously have a lot of talent on (the North American) team and there’s a lot of talent on (the U.S.) team”.

U.S. CAN’T SCORE: In two games before being eliminated, the U.S. scored a total of one goal. As Glenn Schiiler explains, this under-24 squad has grabbed everyone’s attention and they’ve done a lot to grow the game of hockey.

Team Sweden’s roster is here, and the starter is expected to be Henrik Lundqvist. Goalie Carey Price is on, and Canada looks unstoppable as usual. The same could be said of forward Brandon Dubinsky and defensemen Jack Johnson and Erik Johnson. “We’ve proven that this young generation can play with the older ones“.

Gostisbehere had a chance to win the game late in the third period, but his shot hit the post. They also have two other forwards that were picked number-one in their respective drafts, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (Edmonton Oilers) in 2011 and Nathan MacKinnon (Colorado Avalanche) in 2013.