It’s Canada vs. the United States Thursday night, and it’s fair to say everyone is a little bit dialed up.
On one hand, that’s great – hockey rules when it’s played with real stakes, and it’s been a long time since a game has felt this important. But more crucially, this makes life tough for me, a hockey writer who just wants to turn in a simple preview without getting yelled at. Do I know who’s going to win? Yes, of course I do, but I also know that half of you aren’t going to like the answer.
So here’s the deal: I have five reasons Team Canada is definitely winning, and five more why Team USA is the obvious pick. You decide which ones you want to read. The only rule is that you’re not allowed to read both because doing that is illegal and your continued scrolling of this article signifies your acceptance of the terms and conditions.
Agreed? Cool, let’s do this.
(Note to editors: Don’t forget to go back and delete half of these later.)
Team USA is winning because: They have Connor Hellebuyck
It’s the goaltending. It was always going to be the goaltending.
Really, I could just end this whole piece right here. Connor Hellebuyck was already the best in the world coming into the season, he’s running away with this year’s Vezina, he’s been all but unbeatable so far in the tournament (including against Canada), and he’ll be rested heading into Thursday night.
Meanwhile, Canada has Jordan Binnington, who’s made a habit out of giving up one weak goal each game. I mean, what are we even doing here?
In previous generations, giving Team USA the world’s best goalie and Team Canada a guy who’s barely average would have been considered evening the odds. But in a tournament where the rest of the rosters are as close as they’ve ever been, a massive disparity like this at the most important position is almost unfair. Team USA only has to skate Team Canada to something resembling a draw, and they probably win by multiple goals just based on the goaltending.
Yes, Hellebuyck is just one guy. But he’s the one guy who’s going to be standing in the way of every Team Canada scoring attempt. That’s if the Canadians even get all that many, considering how safe they’ll have to play it when they know every mistake can wind up in their net.
This is the nightmare scenario Canadians have been fearing for years, and now it’s here. And it makes picking a winner in this game easy.
Team Canada is winning because: The Americans have Playoff Connor Hellebuyck
Sure, Hellebuyck was great during the 2023-24 regular season. And he’s been great so far during the 2024-25 regular season. Anyone remember what happened in between?
Oh right, he completely collapsed in the 2024 playoffs. Just like he did in the 2023 playoffs. And in 2020. And in 2021, once he got past Mike Smith and had to face Carey Price. On the bright side, at least he didn’t collapse in 2022. (The Jets did not make the playoffs that year.)
So what’s the deal? It’s hard to say. It could absolutely be a case of small sample sizes messing with our perception, although the sample size isn’t all that small anymore. Maybe fatigue is a factor, in which case you may want to check which NHL goalie led the entire league in saves coming into this tournament. Or maybe the moments just get too big for him. And if he can’t handle the first round of the postseason, how’s he going to look in a game that all his teammates seem to be calling the biggest of their lives?
Meanwhile, two goalies in this entire tournament have won Stanley Cups. That would be Binnington and his backup, Adin Hill. No, Binnington hasn’t looked great this week, and it’s safe to assume Jon Cooper will have him on a short leash. But the last time Binnington played in a game this big was when he stopped 32 of 33 shots in Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final. The last time Hellebuyck won a game this big was, well, he hasn’t.
Hey, refresh my memory, which building was that 2019 Game 7 played in? Huh, interesting.
Team USA is winning because: They’ve got home ice
Thanks for that reminder that the game is in Boston. That’s going to be a major factor.
We haven’t had a chance to really hear from the Boston crowd yet, since the only Team USA game the city has hosted was entirely meaningless. But it’s fair to say those fans will be a factor, especially after how Canadian fans treated the Americans on Saturday.
But this is about more than just crowd noise. Team USA isn’t just the home team in the eyes of the fans, but also the rulebook, meaning the Americans get last change. That gives Mike Sullivan control of the matchups, however he chooses to use it.
Canada had their shot at the Americans on their own home ice, in front of one of the loudest crowds in recent memory, and still came up short. Why would the result be any different when now it’s Team USA with the home-ice advantage?
Team Canada is winning because: Some of Team USA’s best players have gone cold
Auston Matthews hasn’t scored a goal yet. Neither has Jack Hughes. Both have just a single assist, which came on the same goal – the team’s fourth of a 6-1 win. Kyle Connor’s lone point, another assist, came in that game too. J.T. Miller hasn’t done anything besides punch himself in the face. Nobody on the blue line other than Zach Werenski is producing much of anything, including former Norris winner Adam Fox. Even the Tkachuk brothers and Jack Eichel, who were unstoppable in the opener, have gone cold.
Put differently, the Americans had one big period where they ran up the score against the tournament’s last-place team, and other than that they’ve been relying on goaltending and low-scoring hockey.
Meanwhile, Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon have looked dangerous throughout the tournament, and Sidney Crosby has more points than either of them. If a championship showdown is about your best players being your best, then Team USA might want to let some so-called stars know that the tournament has started.
Team USA is winning because: Their best players have gone cold and it hasn’t mattered
Oh, a few of the biggest names are slumping? Fascinating. And how many meaningful games has that cost this team? Oh right, zero.
Team USA didn’t need its biggest stars to roll past the Finns, or to beat Canada. They treated the Sweden game like a night off because they’d earned one. This is the deepest American team ever, and that means that not everyone has to be at their best every night for them to win the whole thing.
Put it this way: If Matthews, Hughes, Fox and all the rest stay cold, so be it – Team USA will just have to rely on the best goalie in the world to play well enough to earn a low-scoring win over Canada, which is a formula they’ve already followed once. And if even a few of those guys suddenly rediscover their games? Against Binnington? In terms of big-game humiliations for Team Canada, this could be the 1981 final all over again.
Team Canada is winning because: Sidney Crosby won’t let them lose
He’s the tournament’s leading scorer, and one of its biggest stories. With little left to play for in Pittsburgh these days, Crosby sure looks like a guy who’s been laser-focused on this tournament for a long time, and is ready to leave everything on the ice.
And maybe more importantly, he’s been here before. He scored arguably the biggest goal in international history in 2010. He’s already won three best-on-best tournaments. It’s big news when his team loses a game. And his teammates know that.
Meanwhile, Team USA has turned over the entire roster since the last major tournament. That’s an impressive sign of how much new talent they’ve been able to develop, but they don’t have a Crosby – a certified star who’s been through this before and leads by example. In what will probably be a very tight game where nerves are high, that could absolutely matter.
Team USA is winning because: You can’t beat Jaccob Slavin, you can only hope he doesn’t contain you
But he will. Jaccob Slavin has been one of those fun stories that pops up in these tournaments where everyone realizes just how good a player is while his team’s own fan base yells “WE TOLD YOU” into the void. No, he probably won’t add offense, but they’ve got plenty of that. What Slavin and Brock Faber have done is basically shut down anyone they’re up against.
Hey, did we mention that Team USA has home ice and last change? Hope you enjoyed the Connor McDavid show while it lasted because you’re not going to notice him much.
Team Canada is winning because: They’re healthier (we think)
This feels a little bit like the NHL playoffs, where the mantra that “everyone is probably playing hurt” rings true. Mix in a bad flu that’s been going around, and health is an issue for both teams, including in ways we won’t find out about until after the game. But it’s still safe to say that Canada is the healthier team heading in.
Team USA will be missing Charlie McAvoy, and we’re still not sure if Quinn Hughes can replace him (or how good he’ll be if he does). Brady Tkachuk missed practice Wednesday. Auston Matthews and Matthew Tkachuk missed Monday’s game. All three of those forwards will play, but are they 100 percent? If not, how close are they?
On the Canadian side, while they did lose Shea Theodore early on, the biggest health news of the last few days is that Cale Makar seems to be back to his old self. Chalk it up to bad luck for the Americans if you’d like, but the health scale has tipped to one side as this tournament has worn on.
Team USA is winning because: This is the moment they’ve been building toward for years
This is real life, not some feel-good movie, and you never know how things will play out. But come on. If you’ve been a sports fan long enough, you can see exactly where this is all heading because the script has been in progress for years.
Yes, Canada has owned the best-on-best hockey world for nearly the past three decades. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, after the Americans’ stunning World Cup win in 1996 seemed to signal the dawn of a new era, but here we are. Full credit to the Canadians for winning five of the last six best-on-best tournaments.
But while all those wins have been piling up, the Americans have been growing the game, and building a deep talent pool. The 2016 World Cup may have been a disaster, but not a single player from that 0-3 roster is back. That unprecedented turnover speaks to the depth of young talent the nation has produced, and we’ve known for a while that this current generation of American stars could all peak at the same time to create a monster. That’s exactly what we’re seeing.
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After embarrassment in Nagano in 1998 and again at the World Cup in 2016, and plenty of ups and downs in between, the Americans now get a winner-take-all showdown with their rivals. And they get it not on some faraway rink in the middle of the night, but on home ice in prime time in front of what’s likely to be one of the biggest hockey audiences in recent memory. The script has been perfect. All they need to do now is finish the story.
Sometimes the sports gods telegraph the ending, and that’s OK. Especially when it’s the right one.
Team Canada is winning because: It’s always Team USA’s moment until it isn’t
If this is a movie, it’s one we’ve seen before. Heck, 1998 was supposed to be Team USA’s chance to win Olympic gold and cement their place on top of the hockey mountain, and instead they left Nagano in disgrace. But they’ve also had two cracks at Team Canada in a winner-take-all best-on-best final, including one in 2002 that came on home ice, just like this game. Those two games gave us Jah-yoe Sakic and a Golden Goal and a whole bunch of American excuses about how close they were.
And sure, they are close. They have been for decades. Close doesn’t cut it when everything’s on the line.
American fans can treat this game like it’s playing out on a movie set if they want to, and that’s fine. As a wise man once said, this tournament is about the flags, not the cameras. And it’s going to be a Canadian flag left standing at the end, just like always.
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(Top photo of Auston Matthews and Sidney Crosby: Andre Ringuette / Getty Images)