Michigan defenseman Ethan Edwards scored in overtime to give the 12th-ranked Wolverines a 3-2 victory over the fourth-ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers on Friday at Yost Arena in Ann Arbor.
Garrett Schifsky and Kienan Draper scored in regulation, Tyler Duke and T.J. Hughes each had two assists and Cameron Korpi and Logan Stein combined to make 34 saves.
The victory marked U-M’s sixth in overtime this season, the most for a Wolverines team since the 1998 national champions won seven in extra time, including the national title game.
Grand Rapids rallied from a 3-2 deficit in the third period to beat Iowa 4-3 in overtime and end a five-game losing streak on Friday in Iowa.
Sheldon Dries scored in overtime, Joe Snively added two goals, Hunter Johannes scored the other goal and Sebastian Cossa stopped 26-of-29 shots.
No. 3 Western Michigan edged Omaha of Nebraska, 5-4, in overtime on Friday at Lawson Arena in Kalamazoo.
Joona Vaisanen scored twice, including the winner in OT, Cam Knuble, Alex Bump and Iiro Hakkarainen added single goals and Cameron Rowe stopped 23 shots.
Playing for the Boston Bruins, Charlie McAvoy is accustomed to being a visitor at Bell Centre as a chief rival of the host Canadiens.
“It’s nothing that won’t be familiar to me,” McAvoy said. “You’re not welcome here.”
Now ratchet that up a bunch as he and the United States play Canada on Saturday night at the 4 Nations Face-Off in the countries’ first showdown in an international tournament with the NHL’s best players in nearly a decade, with the world watching and a jacked-up crowd into it from warmups on.
“Saturday night in Canada, against Canada, I don’t think there’s much better than this for a hockey player of this level,” U.S. winger Jake Guentzel said Friday. “The crowd’s going to be intense, it’s going to be hostile, it’s going to be all of the above, so it’ll be a lot of fun.”
On the ice, it’s a tantalizing matchup of Canada’s Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon against Americans Brady and Matthew Tkachuk, Jack Eichel and Auston Matthews. Canada has won the past two Olympics the NHL has participated in, and with Milan a year away, the 4 Nations is a chance for the U.S. to show it has risen to the same level to compete in these kinds of events.
Brady Tkachuk, who had two goals and eight hits in a 6-1 rout of Finland on Thursday night, called it the biggest game of his career. And while coach Mike Sullivan isn’t feeding into the notion that the U.S. has to prove something on this stage, he said his players are “excited to earn their way.”
“One of the greatest things about our sport is that nothing is inevitable,” Sullivan said. “You’ve got to earn it every shift, you’ve got to earn it every game, you’ve got to earn it every year. This team is a different team than years past (and) Canada’s the same way. We’ve got to go out, and we’ve got to earn it.”
Canada has looked inevitable and invincible whenever Crosby has worn the country’s red and white over the past 15 years, winning 26 in a row with him on the ice dating to a loss to the U.S. in the preliminary round at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. That streak, of course, includes Crosby scoring the golden goal to beat the U.S. a week later.
That’s McDavid’s favorite hockey memory, and this is a way for him to put his stamp on this rivalry.
“It’s a big game,” McDavid told reporters in Brossard, Quebec, after Canada’s practice there Friday. “Playing the Americans in Montreal, best-on-best tournament, it’s what you dream of.”
The Tkachuk brothers are a nightmarish matchup, though, and the U.S. showed in beating Finland it can also beat up opponents. Brady had a team-high eight of 32 hits.
“He was a beast,” Matthew said. “It was eight hits, but it felt like 28 hits. He made his presence known.”
So did Canada in beating Sweden on Wednesday night, flashing speed and absurd talent from the McDavid-to-Crosby-to-MacKinnon power-play goal less than a minute in to Mitch Marner’s overtime winner. Canada and the U.S. went into the 4 Nations as co-favorites, and there is no reason to reconsider that so far.
That’s another reason Saturday night is so meaningful. There is a scenario in which the U.S. can clinch a spot in the final in Boston on Thursday night, but players are focused only on Canada because of the challenge at hand.
“That was the one that we all had circled on our calendars,” U.S. defenseman Noah Hanifin said. “They have such a great team. Even watching their game against Sweden the other night, it was so fast-paced, and they got so much talent. So do we. It’s going to be a great game, and I know our guys are super fired up about the opportunity.”
Canada defenseman Drew Doughty has been part of many of these kinds of games over the years, including 2014 in Sochi when he and his teammates clamped down on the U.S. in the semifinals en route to Olympic gold, and his passion hasn’t waned.
“Growing up as a young kid, when you go play American teams and stuff like that, like you want to beat them so bad,” Doughty told reporters in Brossard. “And I still have this feeling at 35 years old how bad you want to beat the Americans.”
Off the ice also has the potential for drama, given the ongoing geopolitical situation since Donald Trump took over as U.S. president and threatened tariffs against Canada, among other countries. A contingent of fans booed “The Star-Spangled Banner” on Thursday night before the game against Finland, and that could rise to nearly the full arena of over 20,000 fans with Canada on the other side this time.
McAvoy also knows what a similar level of vitriol is like from playing in the world junior final in Montreal in 2017 when the U.S. “got booed the whole night.”
“I don’t think I remember seeing one American person,” McAvoy said. “I know my family was there, but I couldn’t find them. It was an all-Canadian crowd and it was loud. It was hostile. … Playing in this rink, that’s kind of what I’m used to. It will be electric.”
If Sam Hallam wants to rile up a Finn of a certain age about Swedish hockey, he’ll just bring up Anders “Masken” Carlsson. For a younger generation, it’s Mats Sundin.
It works the other way around to Swedes if someone mentions Finland’s Saku Koivu. And people will keep doing it, too, because the intense rivalry between the two Nordic nations separated by one sea has been passed down by generations at the Olympics, the world championships and now at the 4 Nations Face-Off.
“It’s a brotherly kind of love-and-hate relationship going back for a long time,” said Hallam, who’s coaching Sweden at the NHL-run tournament. “You want to beat your brother. That’s the way it is. We have tons of respect for the way they play the game, the character they have. That goes for hockey and that goes for life, too. Look at where they are on the map, and they never back down.”
Still, they can’t even agree on which brothers.
“I think you if ask them, they say they’re the big brother, and if you ask us, we’re the big brother,” Sweden captain Victor Hedman said.
Finland’s Erik Haula said this week, “I think I heard Hedman say that they’re the big brother, but I guess we’ll find out.”
Gustav Nyquist pointed out that the hatred dates to when his country of Sweden and Finland were formed. Their long, shared histories are more complex than those of the United States and Canada – longtime allies away from the sports world. It’s peacetime now, except for on the ice when the puck drops for a game pitting Tre Kronor against Suomi.
“It’s more personal, I feel, maybe because with the games through the years in the past, as well, against them, there’s been multiple tight games,” Finland defenseman Esa Lindell said. “And obviously I would say because they’re the country next to us. That adds up (to) extra tension against them.”
There have been plenty of big, tense moments over the years, and never were the stakes higher than at the gold-medal game at the 2006 Olympics. Sweden beat Finland 3-2 in a thriller after Nicklas Lidstrom scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period and Henrik Lundqvist made the most important save of his career on Olli Jokinen with 25 seconds left.
“I remember that game,” Sweden goaltender Samuel Ersson said. “And it feels like when we play each other, the whole country, they stop and you want to watch those games.”
And the players want to take part in them. Hallam thinks the rivalry builds because by age 20, Swedes and Finns have already faced off in some form or fashion 20 to 25 times.
Sweden’s Elias Lindholm still thinks about losing to Finland in the the 2014 world junior championship final on home ice in Malmo. But he also agrees with rivals from Finland about how the dislike is contained on a sheet of ice between the boards and glass.
“You cross paths with a lot of Finns: Huge respect for them, but there’s always something there when we played against each other that had a little extra,” Lindholm said Friday. “You’re going to be competitive out there, and when the game is over, you can all enjoy and you can have a beer or whatever and be friends. But when it’s game time, it’s no friends.”
The 4 Nations Face-Off is a unique event that does not have the history or tradition of the Olympics and is more a celebration of the return of elite competition with the NHL’s best players. But with those players’ return to the Games on the horizon in Milan, the tournament has value as a show of superiority a year away from that major test.
Finland is the defending Olympic champion, and Hedman acknowledged that the Finns’ success from 2022 in Beijing and at recent world championships have evened things out against Sweden.
“I don’t feel like they’ve bullied us or anything like that,” Lindell said. “I feel like lately I think we’ve played very well against them.”
Saturday afternoon is the next chance for Sweden and Finland to add another chapter to their storied rivalry.
“It’s history,” Sweden defenseman Rasmus Dahlin said. “It’s something that means a lot to the Swedish nation. It’s a must-win.”
Wednesday
Springfield 4, Grand Rapids 1
Friday
Grand Rapids 4, Iowa 3 (OT)
Michigan 3, Minnesota 2 (OT)
Western Michigan 5, Nebraska at Omaha 4 (OT)
Augustana 5, Michigan Tech 1
Ferris State 3, Lake Superior State 2 (OT)
Saturday
Grand Rapids at Iowa, 7
Minnesota at Michigan, 6
Nebraska at Omaha at Western Michigan, 6
Michigan Tech at Augustana, 7
Lake Superior State at Ferris State, 6
