Canada, with two Panthers, beats USA in OT for 4 Nations title. Matthew Tkachuk hurt
Two Florida Panthers are 4 Nations Face-Off champions.
Team Canada, which includes Panthers forwards Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett, won the title with a 3-2 overtime win over Matthew Tkachuk and the United States on Thursday at Boston’s TD Garden.
Connor McDavid scored the winning goal for Canada 8:18 into overtime. Bennett, who has been stellar as a physical presence for Canada, tied the game at 2-2 with six minutes left in the second period for his first goal of the tournament. Reinhart had the secondary assist on Nathan MacKinnon’s goal 4:48 into regulation that opened scoring. Reinhart had four assists in the tournament.
Jordan Binnington stopped 31 of 33 shots he faced for Canada.
Brady Tkachuk and Jake Sanderson scored the goals for the United States. Connor Hellebuyck stopped 24 of 27 shots.
For Canada, the championship win served as redemption after falling 3-1 to the United States in Montreal on Saturday during the round-robin portion of the tournament. That game featured three fights in the first nine seconds of regulation, including one involving each Tkachuk brother in the first three seconds.
There would be no fisticuffs, no pre-planned brawls this time around. There was far too much at stake.
And the championship lived up to the hype while providing a perfect finish to the seven-game tournament that also featured Finland and Sweden. It was emotional, high intensity, meaningful hockey throughout the nine-day event in the middle of the NHL season.
Exactly how players said it would be as the first best-on-best tournament they were able to be involved in since 2016.
It serves as a perfect tune up for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, the first to feature NHL players since 2014.
Until then, there’s an NHL season left to complete. Games resume on Sunday, and the Stanley Cup playoffs begin in just shy of two months.
Matthew Tkachuk’s injury
Of utmost importance for the Panthers now that the tournament has concluded: Figuring out the severity of Matthew Tkachuk’s lower-body injury that hobbled him for most of the tournament.
He didn’t play the final 12:36 of the first game against Canada on Saturday and sat out Monday’s round-robin finale against Sweden entirely.
In the championship game on Thursday, Tkachuk played just 6:47 and finished his final shift with 3:22 left in the second period.
The Panthers, who at 34-20-3 lead the Atlantic Division with 25 regular-season games left as they attempt to defend their Stanley Cup championship from last season, resume play on Saturday against the Seattle Kraken (6 p.m., Scripps) at Amerant Bank Arena.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice on Thursday said he would “build some rest” into the schedule for players who took part in the tournament. The Panthers had a league-high eight players take part in the 4 Nations Face-Off. In addition to Reinhart, Bennett and Tkachuk, Gustav Forsling represented Sweden and four players — Aleksander Barkov, Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen and Niko Mikkola — represented Finland.
This story was originally published February 20, 2025 at 11:28 PM.
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