But the Americans systematically siphoned the energy out of the building the rest of the evening, thanks to a combination of crushing bodychecks, a brilliant defensive gameplan that smothered any time and space the Canadians may have looked to exploit, and timely goals by Jake Guentzel in the first period, Dylan Larkin in the second and Guentzel into an empty net in the third.
“Yeah, the first one, it’s tough, he just snuck it five-hole there,” Canada goalie Jordan Binnington said. “And then the second one, 2-on-1, you want to make that save too.
“That’s how the game goes. I competed and I battled hard.”
Maybe so. Nevertheless, in both of Canada’s games, it jumped into the lead in the first six minutes of play and eventually found itself coughing up the lead instead of riding the momentum.
Canada was missing three defensemen who were on the original 23-man roster that was selected in early December. Alex Pietrangelo pulled himself out several weeks ago to allow an unspecified ailment to heal. Then came the loss of Shea Theodore for the remainder of the tournament due to an upper-body injury suffered against Sweden.
On Saturday, Canada was forced to play without its top defenseman, Cale Makar, who was out due to illness. Thomas Harley of the Dallas Stars replaced him in the lineup and accounted well for himself.
“I can’t say what the outlook is right now,” Cooper said when asked about Makar. “Naturally, he was close to playing in tonight’s game. But ultimately the decision was made for him not to play. And those decisions are made for the benefit of the player. Everybody wants to play and contribute and do all these things. And trust me, he’s the one that wants to do it the most. But it wasn’t tonight.
“And so we’ll see. Hopefully Monday. But there’s no determination on that yet.”
Whether Makar plays or not, Canada can play better. More importantly, it needs to play better.
According to Bennett, the Canadians will do exactly that.
“It’s the greatest rivalry in hockey, and they got us tonight,” Bennett said. “I mean, we’re not going to look ahead to a (rematch).
“But obviously, we want them again.”
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