BOSTON – The match between the US and Sweden on Monday night may have zero impact on the tournament, but there is no change in the sport of hockey when wearing the colours of your country.
Pride was still on the line, especially for Sweden. Sweden, in particular, worked overtime for the first two games before winning Team USA 2-1 in front of a packed home at TD Garden at the 4 Nations faceoff.
The teams in this tournament are not spared as evidence of injuries, illnesses, and quality of play and investment from players.
But now Team USA will show uncertainty around the lineup two days before Thursday's final.
Coach Mike Sullivan moved forward with Matthew Tokachuk (lower body) and defender Charlie McAvoy (upper body) in the morning, forcing the Americans to represent the lineup with 11 advances against Sweden.
The news then says that during the warm-up, US Captain Orton Matthews also didn't play due to upper body pain.
However, concerns reached a different level when Brady Tkachuk awkwardly crashed into the post during his first period on Monday night.
He headed towards the locker room, missed a few turns on a spin before returning to a 14-second shift. Instead of descending the tunnel again, Brady Tokachuk stayed on the bench for the rest of the day, but was ruled out for the rest of the game following his initial break.
“We held him down more at that point for precautions,” Sullivan said of Brady. “I haven't had this point update after the game yet, so I'm looking at how it reacts, but I don't expect it to be an issue. Yeah, that's not easy. We lose a guy early in the game. We're already down one. We tried to widen the minutes a little so no one had a massive workload. But when you're defeating two guys early in the game, that's what it is. I thought everyone was competing hard.”
Brady guaranteed that his brother was ready for a rematch with Canada on behalf of Matthew after missing the final 12:36 of the US-Canada match.
It's safe to assume that Matthew would probably say the same thing about Brady.
Matthew essentially guaranteed he would play when he attended the TNT broadcast booth with Kenny Albert and Eddie Orchik on Thursday, and excitedly hoped for the best environment he'd ever played. He said there was.
There is no way to quantify that the Tkachuk brothers mean not only Team USA but also tournaments. Losing just one would be a huge hit for Americans in many ways.
Sullivan said he has not started a process of contacting reserve players in case Team USA is needed.
“We hope to get some of these guys back,” he said. “We're going to expect. We'll have to wait for how things unfold here the next day or so, but obviously, there's an emergency plan if people need it.”
It appears that the flu is also running tournaments.
Sweden was hit particularly hard, with the Rangers scratching Mika Zibanejad and Rickard Raquel due to illness. Canada's Kale Makar missed his first Canada-USA match due to illness, but was enough to face Finland on Monday afternoon.
So it was night for American extra skaters. Sometimes the story just writes itself.
And the start to Chris Cryder's four-nation debut was something from a fairy tale.
After being featured as a starter of raucous applause from the crowds in his hometown, the Rangers returned a 35-second rebound to his first shift to give Team USA a 1-0 lead.
He skates it while skating on the top line in the US with two players Jack Aychel and Brady Tokachuk whom the Rangers have sometimes expressed their interest during Cryder's New York tenure. I did.
“The initial shift was great too,” Rangers teammate JT Miller said of watching Clayder open up the score. “Chris is a teammate hell and I'm happy with him because I got the chance to come in today and produce and get on the scoreboard.”
The Americans temporarily lost Brady Tokachuk, so Sweden pushed from there.
Gustav Nyquist tied it later in the opening frame before Devils Forward Jesper Bratt scored a game-winning goal with 246 seconds remaining.
The fear of the injury continued to come, and Vincent Trokek appeared to hurt his right hand on his final shift.
He went down the tunnel before the period ended, but returned to second.
Trocheck was able to finish the game, but it didn't look completely comfortable. He said he'll be fine after the game.
