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Matthew Tkachuk, Team USA trade chirps with Canada ahead of 4 Nations title game
"Maybe their team doesn’t like each other then if they don’t have group chats."
Matthew Tkachuk and Brandon Hagel set the tone from the opening puck drop of Saturday’s epic bout between Team USA and Canada on Saturday night.
Both Tkachuk and Hagel dropped the gloves right as the puck hit the frozen sheet at Bell Centre, sparking a wild start where the Americans and Canadians engaged in three fights over the first nine seconds of their 4 Nations Face-off bout.
It’s been four days since Tkachuk and Hagel traded right hooks in front of a raucous Montreal crowd. But both players haven’t relented from firing off salvos at one another since then, with their latest offerings coming as verbal barbs in front of a microphone.
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Ahead of Thursday’s anticipated showdown between Team USA and Canada in the 4 Nations championship game at TD Garden, Hagel mocked the narrative around the Americans’ pre-planned decision (via group chat) to open Saturday’s game with fisticuffs.
“We’re out there playing for the flag, not the cameras,” Hagel said Tuesday, per NHL.com. “That’s the part of Canada we have in [the dressing room]. We don’t need to initiate anything. We don’t need any group chats going on. We’re going out there playing our game, giving it everything and, like I said, doing it for our country.”
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Tkachuk — who has thrived over the years with both the Flames and Panthers as an instigator and on-ice antagonist — laughed off Hagel’s comments while fielding questions on Wednesday in Boston.
“Maybe their team doesn’t like each other then if they don’t have group chats,” Tkachuk responded. “That’s just a player enjoying his opportunity. I think that our team does not care about anything that they say.
“There’s been a lot of chatter and talk from individuals, but we care about one thing in this room, and we have millions of people that are watching us and supporting us around this country, and we’re very prideful in playing for them and the guys in the room. So it’s an opportunity of a lifetime for us.”
4 Nations Face-off
While Tkachuk and Hagel have helped elevate the already high tensions between both teams leading up to Thursday’s game, Team Canada forward (and Bruins captain) Brad Marchand doled out plenty of compliments to the Americans in his media address.
“They’re by far the best [team] that I’ve played — no disrespect for the previous teams, but the way that the game has evolved in the last 10 years,” Marchand said of the challenge presented by this U.S. squad. “Some of the players on the team will be some of the best that ever played the game of hockey.
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“And they embody a team that competes at the highest level. They have everything. … You look at that team, there’s nothing wrong with it. So it’s definitely the best team that I’ve seen, really, that I think I’ve ever played against.”
For all of the discourse and narratives that have hovered over both Team USA and Canada leading into Thursday’s winner-take-all bout, Tkachuk stressed that the added drama rooted in these scraps and chirps won’t hold any weight when the puck is dropped again at TD Garden on Thursday.
“I don’t think it necessarily changes our mindset,” Tkachuk said. “It was a Game 7 feel last Saturday, and it’s for all the marbles this time,” Tkachuk said. “So it’s a very similar approach from us, and just do whatever it takes to win. Last game, it was a hostile environment for us. Hopefully it’ll be less hostile for us and more for them this time around, and we know it will be with the great fans here in the U.S.
“It’s something that we’re really looking forward to. … I think that you talk about messages sent or whatever the case is. All that stuff is thrown out the window. It’s one game for everything. So we’re gonna do everything we can to win.”
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