There was a surreal moment at the Bell Centre on Wednesday night.
Boston Bruins captain and super-pest Brad Marchand was actually cheered by fans in Montreal.
The player Montreal fans love to hate scored a first-period goal to put Team Canada up 2-0 on Sweden in the first game of the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament and the Bell Centre crowd erupted. Canada would go on to win 4-3 in overtime.
“I heard a few boos out there still,” Marchand joked with TNT’s Jackie Redmond during a first-intermission interview. “But no, it’s incredible the way that Canada rallies behind the team. You feel so much love and emotion. You can see how excited they are out there, so it’s been fun to be out there.”
Cheers for Marchand at the Bell Centre could have been a common thing since the Canadiens could have selected the Halifax, N.S., native at the 2006 NHL Draft. While playing with the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats during the 2005-06 season, Marchand posted 29-37-66 totals in 68 regular-season games and then added 5-14-19 totals in 20 playoff games at the Wildcats won the QMJHL championship.
The Bruins selected Marchand in the third round (71st overall) of the 2006 draft.
The Canadiens selected four players that year before the Bruins took Marchand, taking defenceman David Fischer in the first round (20th overall), centre Ben Maxwell (49th) and defenceman Mathieu Carle (53rd) in the second round, and centre Ryan White (66th) in the third round. Fischer never played a game in the NHL. Maxwell played 47 NHL games (including 20 with the Canadiens). Carle played three NHL games with the Canadiens. White played 313 NHL games, including 141 with the Canadiens, posting 31-30-61 totals.
To make things worse, the Philadelphia Flyers took Claude Giroux two picks after the Canadiens selected Fischer, who had been playing high-school hockey in Minnesota.
After being drafted by the Bruins, Marchand won back-to-back world junior championships with Team Canada in 2007 and 2008 when he was with the Val-d’Or Foreurs. Marchand finished his junior career with the Halifax Mooseheads.
Marchand won a gold medal with Team Canada at the 2016 IIHF World Championship and at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, where he scored the winning goal. He finished that tournament with 5-4-9 totals in nine games.
Jon Cooper, head coach of Team Canada for the 4 Nations Face-Off, has been impressed by Marchand.
“He’s everything I hoped for and probably a little bit more,” said Cooper, who coaches the Tampa Bay Lightning. “The kid definitely has fire in the belly. I think he’s got a lot of passion for the game. Nobody works harder than him. I didn’t know him when he was younger. I just coached against him. He’s always played the game on the edge. He’s been on both sides of it. But you bring him to an event like this, and he just bleeds the red and white and just, ‘Whatever role you put me in, I will lay in traffic for you.’ That’s the type of kid he is.
“You kind of see that from afar and you don’t know how his personality is, but he’s great,” Cooper added. “He’s a voice, especially when you have a lot of the young guys and guys that haven’t been maybe on this big a stage before. He’s a voice, and it’s much-needed.”
Marchand is now in his 16th season with the Bruins and has 421-552-973 totals.
Tkachuks are double trouble
Brothers Matthew and Brady Tkachuk scored two goals each for Team USA in a 6-1 win over Finland on Thursday night at the Bell Centre in their first game at the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Brady — like Marchand — could have been a Canadien.
After the Canadiens decided to take Jesperi Kotkaniemi with the No. 3 overall pick at the 2018 NHL Draft, the Ottawa Senators took Tkachuk at No. 4. Tkachuk has 183-210-393 totals in 496 career games and is now captain of the Senators. Kotkaniemi, now with the Carolina Hurricanes, has 75-112-187 totals in 496 career games and didn’t make Team Finland for the 4 Nations Face-Off.
The Tkachuk brothers are playing together for the first time with Matthew coming off a Stanley Cup championship last season with the Florida Panthers. They’re also playing on the same line with Jack Eichel as their centre.
“I don’t really think it’s hit yet, to be honest with you,” Brady said about playing with his brother. “I can only imagine how proud my parents, family and friends are. In know from my experience, I was really excited for this tournament. After a couple days this has been the best experience of my hockey life. I can’t really describe the excitement and joy. Just able to play with him, be together every day. It’s been amazing.”
Brady can’t wait for Saturday’s showdown with Team Canada at the Bell Centre (8 p.m., SN, TVA Sports).
“I think it’s gonna be the biggest game that I’ve ever played in my career,” Brady said. “So I’m really looking forward to that. There’s a big buildup to it. USA vs. Canada is bigger than just the guys on the ice. There’s so many people — past, present, down the road. So excited for it. We’ve been talking about that game, especially. Really excited to experience it.”
Cheers for a Maple Leaf
There was another surreal moment at the Bell Centre on Wednesday night — there will be quite a few of them in this tournament — when the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Mitch Marner made the building erupt by scoring the winning goal for Team Canada in overtime.
“That kid oozes confidence,” Cooper said after the game about the 6-foot, 180-pound Marner. “I thought it was a big-time player making a big-time play at a big-time moment.
“When you’re that size, you have to have something,” Cooper added. “You have to be unique at something, you have to be better than everybody at something. And if you really watched that game, the plays he made, the plays he made in tight, the plays he made in traffic. … He’s not the fastest kid on the ice, he doesn’t have the hardest shot on the ice, he doesn’t do a whole bunch of things that a lot of guys out there on both teams do better than him. But then it’s really hard to sit here and say: ‘Well, is there a better player?’
“He puts himself at that elite level the way he thinks the game, the way he processes the game at such a high level and at such a high rate of speed,” Cooper added. “That’s why he’s the player he is. I’ve watched him close-up, I’ve coached against him in playoff series and I’ve watched what he can do. There’s not too many guys that can excel both as a power-play player and a penalty-killer, and a five-on-five guy and three-on-three. Mitch can do it all. I’ve watched this kid grow from when he was a young kid in pro hockey to what he is now and he just keeps getting better.”
On X this week, I came across the cute 2002 video below of Marner at age 5 being interviewed when the Markham, Ont., native was named the City Pulse Sports Athlete of the Week.
Practice makes perfect
I wasn’t surprised Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon were the first two Team Canada players on the ice for an optional practice Thursday morning at the CN Sports Complex.
They’re both hockey junkies and it’s not an accident they became two of the best hockey players in the world.
Seven years ago, I wrote a column about how Guillaume Ouimet — who was playing for the Junior Double-A Mont-Tremblant Diables at the time — went for a morning skate on an outdoor rink in Mont-Tremblant and ended up skating and doing drills for about an hour with Crosby, who was vacationing there during a January bye week in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ schedule.
“When you think about it, it was his bye week — his only week with no hockey during the entire season,” Ouimet said about the experience. “He comes to Mont-Tremblant and he brings his skates? That shows you how much he loves the game. He could have gone on a beach in Mexico or somewhere and relax.”
Cooper also wasn’t surprised Crosby and MacKinnon were the first ones on the ice Thursday morning in Brossard.
“Those two, they’re hockey junkies,” the Team Canada coach said. “It’s really cool to be a part of them. Everything is about the game, and they talk about the game, they live the game and you don’t see that a ton. When you rise to this level, you can have a tendency to take your foot off the gas or get used to the life. I’ve watched it countless times with players. But those two, they don’t take it for granted.
“You can see players watch them,” Cooper added. “They watch what they do. I think when you leave these events, you’re going to take away the experience and the euphoria and all the things that happen. But you hope you take away the example of what the leaders and the guys really have a passion for this, how they act, how they conduct themselves. When they show up to the rink, what they do at the rink, how long they’re at the podium. When they stop and talk to fans on the street and all those things that just promote the wellness of the game — and those two guys have it.”
Coaching Crosby
After Team Canada’s first practice Monday in Brossard, Cooper was asked about the effect Crosby could have as captain of Team Canada in the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Cooper mentioned a fantastic feature story the Toronto Sun’s Steve Simmons wrote about Crosby under the headline: How Sidney Crosby became the greatest winner in hockey history.
“Did you read Steve Simmons’s article on him?” Cooper said during his post-practice news conference Monday. “Have you guys read this article? I thought it was outstanding and that pretty much personifies Sidney Crosby.
“In that article, it said it’s just ‘Sid being Sid,’ and really there’s something to that,” Cooper added. “I haven’t been around him in my career other than the fact of competing against him. The way he is and interacts and the guy that carries so much weight. And he’s like a polarizing figure, but there’s just so much humility about him and it just comes through him and that’s why people follow him. You talk about wanting to play for your country, this kid — it’s remarkable the passion he has for it and that’s probably why he’s got a whole lot of wins and not a whole lot of losses when he plays in these events.”
Crosby extended his winning streak while wearing a Team Canada sweater to 26 games with Wednesday’s victory over Sweden. He has 10-19-29 totals during that span. Crosby has a gold medal from the 2014 Olympics and also won with Team Canada at the 2015 IIHF World Championship and the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, to go along with a world junior championship in 2005.
Cooper and Crosby spoke often in the lead-up to this tournament.
“The interaction started when I was named head coach (in June),” Cooper said. “Every time we’ve gone to Pittsburgh I’ve met with him after the game. We’ve had text messages, phone calls, there’s been constant discussion. I could make an argument I’ve talked to him more than our own captain (Victor Hedman of the Lightning). This has been something that for me, personally, and (Team Canada GM Don Sweeney) communication is a big part of this and developing relationships and finding out how these guys work. And Sid’s a big part of that. Sid’s seen things that I haven’t seen on the international stage. He’s been a part of these. So as much as I think how I see things going, it’s great to have a perspective of somebody that’s been there and done that. So there was a lot of communication between the two of us.
“There’s no shock or surprise about why this kid has won as much as he has,” Cooper added. “There’s not a flaw in any way. Talk about a cool thing to be a part of. This is a cool thing to be a part of because he’s here.”
Loving Montreal
Cooper received a big round of applause from Bell Centre fans during Wednesday’s pre-game ceremony when he was announced as Team Canada’s head coach.
“Well, they have no choice,” Cooper said after the game, drawing laughs from the media. “I’m coaching the team.
“But I’ll be honest,” Cooper added. “I’ve been in this league long enough and I think that the people of Montreal know how much this place has meant to me. First time I ever made the playoffs (in 2014) was here. We got swept (by the Canadiens). It was tough, but I’ll never forget the way I was treated, the way I was treated in town. We’ve had some battles with the Canadiens over the years. We’ve lost playoff series, we’ve won playoff series. But I love this city. I love being here. I think this is the greatest away arena in the league to come to. I marvel at what’s put on here and I think hockey’s done right. You just got to appreciate about the fans and I feel very fortunate that they appreciate me.”
Comfort level
I chuckled Friday when I saw Anthony Marcotte of BPM Sports Radio posted a photo on X of Crosby wearing his legendary shoulder pads in the Team Canada locker room after practice Friday in Brossard.
Crosby has had the same shoulder pads since his junior days with the Rimouski Océanic in 2003-04 and 2004-05. I remember interviewing Crosby for a column in the Penguins locker room in Pittsburgh five years ago and being amazed at how old and beat-up most of the equipment hanging in his locker was, including his shoulder pads, elbow pads and even his jock strap. They all dated back to his junior days.
Crosby joked at the time he’d probably feel too light if he got new equipment.
Praise for Koivu
Team Finland captain Aleksander Barkov was born the same year fellow countryman Saku Koivu began his 13-year career with the Canadiens before playing five more seasons with the Anaheim Ducks.
“I think he’s one of those guys who set the standard,” Barkov said about Koivu, who was captain of the Canadiens from 1999 to 2009. “Obviously, not just him, but a lot of different (Finnish) guys like his brother, Mikko, Teemu Selanne, all those big captains who have been in the Finnish national teams. They set the standard for the Finnish national team — how we play, how we approach tournaments and wearing the Finnish jersey, and we respect that and we’re really honoured to be a continuation of that.
“I’ve seen the videos and I see him on the walls here (at the Bell Centre) all the time,” Barkov added. “I was a big fan of hockey growing up and I know how big he was here.”
Warm welcome for Lehkonen
Former Canadien Artturi Lehkonen received a nice round of applause from fans at the Bell Centre when he was introduced as part of Finland’s starting lineup against Team USA on Thursday.
“I thought it was cool,” Lehkonen said. “I have a lot of good memories from here. It was a cool thing.”
After spending six seasons in Montreal, Canadiens GM Kent Hughes traded Lehkonen to the Colorado Avalanche on March 21, 2022, in exchange for defenceman Justin Barron and a second-round pick at last year’s NHL Draft. That draft pick was later dealt to the Los Angeles Kings as part of the deal that saw the Canadiens move up from the No. 26 overall pick at last year’s draft to No. 21, where they selected centre Michael Hage. Hughes traded Barron to the Nashville Predators last December in exchange for defenceman Alexandre Carrier.
Lehkonen scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal for the Avalanche in 2022 and he has already scored a career-high 23 goals this season in 45 games. Lehkonen also leads the Avalanche with a plus-24 rating, which ranks 10th in the NHL.
Lehkonen never scored more than 18 goals during his six seasons with the Canadiens. He is playing on the No. 1 line with the Avalanche, along with MacKinnon and Martin Necas. Lehkonen is also on Colorado’s first power-play unit, but only one of his 23 goals has come on the power play.