The greatest hockey ever played featured a rather simple concept.
Put the best two players in the world together.
Midway through the three-game final of the 1987 Canada Cup, Mike Keenan put Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux together and played the living hell out of them.
Which brings us here to 4 Nations. Hear me out.
BetMGM has the U.S. and Canada as co-favorites coming into the tournament, but in my mind, Team USA on paper should win this event, the goaltending alone giving them a real edge. The Americans are deeper, top to bottom, than any of the other three teams. I mean, when Dylan Larkin is on your fourth line, you know you’re cooking with oil.
The U.S. being the team to beat is, of course, a tough thing for any Canadian hockey fan to hear. But right now, it’s the truth.
All of which is why Team Canada may need to steal a page out of Keenan’s ’87 Canada Cup playbook.
Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar should be over the boards all the freaking time in the event. With no back-to-back games, Team Canada’s best chance to win this event is to unleash the world’s best player, the world’s second-best player and arguably the world’s greatest defenseman as much as possible.
GO FURTHER
Team Canada’s 4 Nations nuclear option: Could they channel 1987, put MacKinnon, McDavid together?