U.S. defensemen ready to step up against Canada at 4 Nations Face-Off

MONTREAL -- The challenge is as much mental as physical, about not letting up and not being intimidated, about being in the right spots at the right times and keeping to a system installed less than a week ago.

Yes, the Canada offense is a juggernaut, a group that scored all of 12 seconds into its only power play of the 4 Nations Face-Off, against Sweden on Wednesday.

But the U.S. is not cowed by what they will be up against at Bell Centre on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, TVAS). It can’t be.

“You can’t really overthink,” defenseman Noah Hanifin said. “I think you’ve just got to trust yourself, trust your instincts. You don’t want to get caught doing too much necessarily, because when you do that any little mistake turns into a Grade A chance so fast against teams with that much talent.

“The margin for error is so close. It’s just about moving the puck, being hard, being simple, and letting our forwards get up and make their plays as well. Because we have a lot of dangerous offense as well.”

And though the names on Canada’s roster could be daunting -- Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Cale Makar, Mitch Marner -- the same could be said for the forwards and defensemen on the U.S. roster.

“You can’t be mesmerized by what they have,” defenseman Charlie McAvoy said. “And I think you could say the same for us. A lot of skill. We’ve got a lot of skill too, we’ve got a lot of superstars on our team. It’s going to be about defending as a group of five when you’re playing against a team like that.”

Those U.S. defensemen will be taking some cues from what Sweden did against Canada, limiting them to three goals in regulation, in a game that Canada needed overtime to win. The U.S. won its own first game in the tournament, a resounding 6-1 victory against Finland on Thursday.

“Just looked like a lot of speed and skill, especially in that first period, which I don’t think is much of a surprise to anybody seeing their roster dynamic they have,” McAvoy said. “Kind of like what they did with Sweden, how they got over the top of them and made it difficult to come to the neutral zone, to have really any time and space. That’s the objective. That’s what you’ve got to try and do. When you have guys that can wind it up like they do, you’ve got to try and get over the top and keep the puck out of their hands.”

The U.S. will aim to keep up the communication, both because of unfamiliar defense pairs and because of new systems, all of which have had to get up to speed since the teams arrived in Montreal on Monday.

That is especially true against that Canada power play.

“Obviously it’ll be a big challenge,” U.S. coach Mike Sullivan said. “It’s hard to key on any one aspect of the group. They have threats in all positions. … From our standpoint we’ve got to just make sure that we’re predictable for one another.

“We tried to instill a certain foundation of our penalty kill both in zone and off the face-offs, the forecheck up the ice, the entries, some of the critical aspects of killing that’s important for success. We just have to make sure that foundationally that we’re on the same page and we’re locked in. We’re going to have to win face-offs, we’re going to win puck battles, we’re going to have to get clears. If we can make the entries difficult for them and potentially limit their zone time, that goes a long way to helping us have success.”

Sullivan made some swaps to the defense pairs in-game against Finland, keeping McAvoy and Werenski together while pairing Jaccob Slavin and Brock Faber, and Hanifin and Adam Fox.

It seemed to click for the U.S.

“We just felt that we wanted to effect a little bit of change amongst the pairs back there,” Sullivan said. “We thought it would give us a better opportunity to get potentially advantageous matchups and give us a better chance to win.”

Saturday will be a test, of the players' mental focus, of their physical abilities, playing against the best collection of offensive talent any of them ever have seen.

But it’s a test they’re eager to take.

“When you’re playing against this level of competition, you have to be as sharp as you can be mentally,” Hanifin said. “You take one split second off or you’re not focused or dialed in for one split second, all of a sudden it’s a chance against.

“You’ve got to be on your toes. You’ve got to be sharp. But you also can’t overthink. You’ve just got to trust yourself, trust your instincts and trust your teammates. It should be a lot of fun.”