The 4 Nations Face-Off is a wrap, and everyone got the heavyweight bout on Thursday night that they were bargaining for.
The U.S. and Canada, with all of their history, all of their ice-level rivalries, and admit or not, all of the rising political tensions from the outside that bled their way in, delivered a title game performance for the ages, where every chance had fans on the edge of their seats and where every error felt like it was nearly the end of the world.
So of course all that anxiety, and all that adrenaline, required overtime, where just over eight minutes in, Connor McDavid, the best player in the world, got left unmarked all alone in front of the U.S. net, firing home the tournament winner for Canada.
The celebration alone, for a whole lot of reasons – and granted, one major, highly antagonizing one – signaled how big this really was.
"I just hope Canada's proud, because every player in that room is proud to be a Canadian," Jon Cooper, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Team Canada head coach, said afterward. "Yeah, did we need a win? Not only our team, but Canada needed a win. The players beared that on their shoulders. They took it seriously.
"This one was different. This wasn't a win for themselves. This was a win for 40-plus million people. The guys knew it, and they delivered."
CONNOR MCDAVID WINS THE 4 NATIONS FOR CANADA IN OVERTIME 😱🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/7XIdlj4c75
— ESPN (@espn) February 21, 2025
In the scope of the Flyers, Travis Sanheim was among those players.
Philadelphia's leading defenseman was in the lineup and on a pairing with the St. Louis Blues' Colton Parayko, and together, they were impactful in keeping the U.S. at bay throughout what became a nail-biter of a 3-2 win.
They were constantly stepping in the way of pass attempts to the inside, used their size to their advantage in the corners, and then put their puck-possession prowess along the blue line to work to hold possession in the offensive zone – plus, it requires mentioning, that goaltender Jordan Binnington gave the pair and Canada on the whole clutch save after clutch save to hold it all together.
Sanny stepped up big time. 👏#4Nations | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/Q8MD6QcEXk
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) February 21, 2025
All told, Sanheim skated 18:29 across 31 shifts on Thursday night, putting a shot on goal, but bigger of all, keeping the U.S. away from Canada's with a zero plus-minus rating.
He went through the handshake line victorious with a championship hat on his head, got a gold medal draped around his neck, and then his time to hoist the inaugural 4 Nations Trophy.
With how far Sanheim has come as a defenseman and a veteran over these past few years, and after enduring so many uneven and frustratingly inconsistent years with the Flyers as they still try to figure things out, he earned a moment like this.
Travis Konecny, who has endured much of the same but wasn't in Canada's lineup for Thursday night, did, too.
Even so, he ended up finding a way to leave his imprint on the tournament.
Marchand and Konecny 💀💀 #4Nations pic.twitter.com/6Enge0QnvC
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) February 21, 2025
Seems fitting that it was Brad Marchand giving him a lift to go get his medal. They're very similar players in terms of style and ferocity, so it figures they would get along well once you put them on the same roster – though they probably won't be so friendly anymore the second the Flyers play Boston again.
Anyway, yeah, 4 Nations was a rush, but now the NHL is getting back to business with its season.
Here are a couple more Flyers thoughts before they pick their schedule back up on Saturday at home against McDavid, the Canadian hero, and the Edmonton Oilers…
The grind through winter
The Flyers are coming back for a 25-game stretch to close out the regular season where their fate seems already decided.
They're an extreme long shot to make the playoffs. As of Friday, they're sitting second to last in the Eastern Conference with a 55-point total that is only six points out from a Wild Card spot in what's been a mostly mediocre race for it so far, but they do so with a massive minus-30 goal differential.
Associate coach Brad Shaw, who spoke after practice in Voorhees on Friday while John Tortorella makes his way back from his assistant coaching assignment for Team USA, said he expects the team to have Konecny and Sanheim for Saturday against Edmonton.
Soon after, the Flyers announced that Owen Tippett, Ryan Poehling, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Egor Zamula, who were all out with injury over the past few weeks, would be available to play Saturday as well.
And that will all help, for sure. The lineup was stretched way too thin ahead of the 4 Nations break, and it showed in the form of a 1-4-1 record over the Flyers' last six games, which included an ugly run of three straight shutouts by a combined margin of 10-0 against the Devils, Islanders, and Avalanche.
But the reinforcements won't dig them out of this hole, not at this point.
Tortorella alluded to it many times last season while the Flyers were overachieving and keeping up in the playoff race: the season changes in February. Teams that are either in the hunt or contenders outright start checking harder and begin to buckle down and generate their scoring from out of the corners in anticipation of a harsher playoff pace.
Life is not going to get easier for this team the rest of the way. They're not playing way above their weight like they were until the end of last year, and the lineup, even at its healthiest, can't outscore an Edmonton, or a Washington, Toronto, or even Pittsburgh so long as they have Sidney Crosby.
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They can defensively outlast them, maybe, but that happening requires everyone on the ice to play with near-perfect checking, and for the goaltenders to be stellar on top of that, and you just can't consistently get by that way unless all the stars align. It isn't sustainable.
And that's all without even getting to the Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost trades to Calgary, which pretty clearly signaled that general manager Danny Brière and the front office are looking way beyond this season, and likely with more future-minded moves to come as the March 7 trade deadline draws nearer.
It's all but assuredly going to be another Flyers season where you have to find solace in the little things.
Finish strong
How Matvei Michkov finishes the season could be one of those smaller victories.
The 20-year-old rookie sensation has shown his flashes of offensive brilliance, but already having played the most hockey he ever has within a year, he's shown his signs that he's hit a wall of late, too.
Before the 4 Nations break, Michkov's last 10 games consisted of two goals, an assist, and a minus-4 rating, with both of those goals getting scored in the February 6 loss to Washington.
With 16 goals and 36 points overall on the season, Michkov does have his place in the Calder Trophy conversation for Rookie of the Year, but he has taken a back seat to San Jose's No. 1 overall pick Macklin Celebrini (17 goals, 40 points) and Montreal's rising star Lane Hutson (38 assists, 41 points).
But hey, maybe two weeks away ends up the kind of break Michkov needed to regain his legs and he takes back off again.
Here's hoping.
Actually, one more on 4 Nations…
You know, for a league like the NHL, that has a history of burying its head in the sand and calling it being apolitical, Team USA sure did spend a lot of time in the couple of days leading up to Thursday night's championship game sticking their nose in politics during an NHL-created event.
The Canadian crowd in Montreal booing the American national anthem in protest of Donald Trump's aggressive push to tariff the country and then his highly concerning talk of wanting to make it the 51st state is the root of the issue, and what brought unavoidable political tension into the tournament since it was international best-on-best running between Montreal and then Boston.
But then in light of that, and in response to the anthem booing and the three immediate fights there were the first time the U.S. and Canada played one another, Team USA general manager Bill Guerin decided that Monday was a great time to go on Fox News, openly say there is a "political flair" to the U.S.-Canada rivalry, then throw an open invitation out to Trump to come to Thursday night's game in Boston.
He didn't, but there was a call arranged between Trump and the U.S. team the morning of, followed by this egregious soundbite from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt:
pic.twitter.com/BolcD1q0K0 White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt discussed President Trump's phone call to the U.S. hockey team this afternoon.
Leavitt: “He talked to the players after their morning practice around 10 o’clock, and I also spoke to some folks from the team…— Rick Westhead (@rwesthead) February 20, 2025
It was a wholly self-absorbing storyline heading toward puck drop.
A distraction in other words, in a sport and league that always claims it doesn't want them, yet had one here that was fully invited by the U.S. team.
And it got out of hand for them, to the point where, in Thursday night's biggest moment, they forgot Connor McDavid was on the ice.
THERE IT IS! THE GAME WINNER! THE TOURNAMENT WINNER! 😱😱😱
CONNOR MCDAVID HAS WON IT FOR CANADA!!! #4Nations pic.twitter.com/nDneA2e26K— NHL (@NHL) February 21, 2025
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