Read all of The Athletic’s 4 Nations Face-Off coverage here.
I’ve heard the consensus concerning the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Who cares? I received’t even watch. It’s a silly match. This isn’t the Olympics.
When you’re a Sidney Crosby fan — and in the event you’re studying this, there’s a superb probability you might be — it’s value watching.
I don’t have an issue with the match, which begins Wednesday with Canada versus Sweden in Montreal, besides that solely 4 nations are enjoying. Merely speaking about hockey, Russia must be included. Czechia too. This stinks. No query.
It’s a made-up match.
That is true. However let me ask you a query: Which match isn’t made up? Take into consideration that one for a minute.
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When it’s best-on-best, it nonetheless issues for the best gamers of all time, and Crosby is on that record. Despite the fact that all international locations aren’t collaborating, the match continues to be largely best-on-best. The most effective participant on the earth is Connor McDavid, and he’ll be there. The most effective participant of this century is Crosby, and he’ll be there. Just about all the finest gamers on the earth, with just a few notable exceptions (Leon Draisaitl, Nikita Kucherov and David Pastrňák), will likely be there. USA-Canada way back surpassed Russia-Canada as one of the best rivalry within the males’s recreation (USA-Canada in ladies’s hockey is the game’s finest rivalry proper now). And, make no mistake, america and Canada will likely be there.
This isn’t an All-Star Sport, which really doesn’t matter and will by no means be performed once more on account of its irrelevance.
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That is actual. That is 4 nice hockey nations, a few of whom don’t significantly like one another. This must be high-level, intense hockey in the midst of what has been a painfully boring NHL common season, when rankings and curiosity are each down.
For one of the best of one of the best, this does matter.
What’s Crosby’s legacy with out the golden objective? Oh, he’d nonetheless be thought of one of many best gamers of all time, in fact, however that was his signature second. It’s some of the well-known hockey objectives ever scored. It got here, fairly clearly, in worldwide play. Together with the postseason, Crosby has scored 680 objectives as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins. A lot of them have been breathtaking and memorable. Completely none had the impression of the golden objective.
What’s Crosby’s legacy with out him captaining the 2014 Canadian Olympic staff to gold and captaining Crew Canada to the World Cup of Hockey championship in 2016? Positive, we’d nonetheless think about him among the many nice winners and nice leaders in hockey historical past. However the reality is, Canada is on a golden run like the game has solely seen within the Russian Purple Military days. Canada has received 25 straight video games with Crosby on its roster. That’s not a typo. Canada is 45-5 all-time when Crosby wears its sweater. His worldwide brilliance is a really vital a part of his legacy. He’s the chief of what is perhaps the best nationwide staff that ever lived.
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Wednesday in Montreal, he can proceed writing that legacy. I don’t suppose he’s 100% wholesome and I don’t imagine Crosby would dare put something forward of his dedication to the Penguins, however don’t suppose for a second that this match doesn’t matter to him. Because it ought to.
Penguins historical past is suffering from a number of the best gamers of all time.
Crosby. Mario Lemieux. Jaromir Jagr.
No franchise can match that trio. And regardless of all of their exploits within the NHL, their reputations and legacies had been perpetually augmented by what they did internationally.
Jagr and Dominik Hašek received gold for the Czech Republic on the 1998 Olympics — particularly noteworthy as a result of it was the primary time NHL gamers had been allowed to compete in that match. The entire world’s large boys had been there, and the Czechs’ basically two-man staff earned gold. It was certainly one of Jagr’s best moments and, although he was already the world’s finest participant at the moment, it elevated his stature.
Lemieux’s most good objective got here within the 1991 Stanley Cup Last in opposition to Minnesota. However traditionally talking, the objective that the majority keep in mind as his most essential was his winner within the 1987 Canada Cup (which was very a lot a “made-up” match, by the way in which). In Canada, it’s often known as Gretzky to Lemieux. Right here in Pittsburgh, we simply name it Lemieux’s breakout second. That’s the place the baton was handed. It didn’t occur within the NHL as a result of the 2 best forwards to ever play by no means met in a playoff collection. It occurred in Hamilton, Ontario, the place, regardless of Gretzky’s brilliance in that fortnight, it was Lemieux who, simply days shy of his twenty second birthday, had begun to exceed the Nice One.
In maybe the ultimate act of brilliance in his NHL profession, Lemieux captained Canada to Olympic gold in Salt Lake Metropolis in 2002. He did so on a hip that prohibited him from enjoying in all however one of many the rest of the Penguins’ video games that season. He prioritized the match over the Penguins’ season, fairly a brash transfer contemplating he owned the financially struggling staff and he was the one box-office attraction. However he understood the chance introduced to him. It was his legacy.
The best I’ve seen Crosby play boils down to 2 time durations. In November and December of 2010, Crosby was at his statistical finest. He scored 32 objectives within the first 41 video games of that season and was on tempo for 64 objectives and 132 factors earlier than a concussion quickly derailed his profession.
The opposite time? The 2016 World Cup of Hockey, the place he produced 10 factors in six video games and was named match MVP whereas main Canada to a dominant victory. That, too, was a “made-up” match. But, it produced a number of the best hockey ever performed by one of many best hockey gamers of all time.
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Worldwide hockey issues. Sure, this can be a flawed match and historical past will and will all the time word that. However it’s nonetheless Crosby, nearing the twilight of his profession, carrying the Crew Canada sweater. Chances are high, he’ll do one thing on this match that we received’t quickly overlook. Lacking it since you don’t suppose the match issues is your selection, however it will be the mistaken one.
(Photograph: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Photos)
