Supercharged lineup of Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Macklin Celebrini celebrate MacKinnon’s goal Friday.Hassan Ammar/The Associated Press
Only a few games into the Olympics, has Jon Cooper revealed his nuclear option?
As the head coach of Team Canada plays chemist with his roster, trying to see which elements react with which, one combination raised eyebrows in Milan on Friday.
Despite Canada leading the Swiss on the scoreboard, Cooper thought his team needed a jolt. So in an effort to supercharge the offence, Cooper loaded up, sending Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Macklin Celebrini over the boards together.
Together, they are three of the top four points-getters in the NHL this year, combining for 270 in 168 games so far.
The MacKinnon, Celebrini and McDavid line hadn’t been mentioned before Friday, but dominated against the Swiss.Marton Monus/Reuters
For all his in-game adjustments this week, it was a line Cooper hadn’t mentioned before. Until Friday, Cooper has mostly talked about balancing his offence over multiple lines to create a sustained attack.
That kind of bombastic line, which Cooper appeared to be trying as an experiment, or perhaps a curiosity, early in the tournament, was a departure.
Every coach has a line that they load up when needed; an in-case-of-emergency-break-glass kind of situation. This may be Cooper testing that out.
McDavid and MacKinnon are two of the league’s fastest skaters and currently sit first and second in NHL points. Celebrini, a 19-year-old budding superstar, is fourth behind Nikita Kucherov.
“They’re three phenomenal players, generational, these kids. But in saying that, you don’t know how that chemistry is going to go all the time,” Cooper said.
“Ultimately they’re three guys that want the puck, need the puck – and there’s only one puck. So now sacrifices have to be made, but ultimately they did it.”
Despite less ice time, McDavid still dominates in win over Swiss
The line racked up a few goals and was otherwise dominant in the 5-1 win.
“In saying that, as wonderful as they are with the puck, how I’m grading them is on how they play without it,” Cooper said.
“So you keep doing the right things without the puck, good things are going to happen, and it did tonight for them.”
Cooper is an in-game tinkerer by nature. At last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off, he juggled lines constantly, most memorably moving Mitch Marner off of McDavid’s line, placing him in between more physical wingers to jumpstart his depth scoring and to shake up Marner’s game.
He then returned Marner to McDavid’s line late in the tournament, where the winger assisted on McDavid’s overtime winner against the United States.
But Cooper said the ability to move top players to the wing of another top centre was a big part of choosing the roser.Mike Segar/Reuters
Many of the forwards on Canada’s roster, such as MacKinnon and Celebrini, are centres in the NHL. But Cooper said the ability to move top players to the wing of another top centre was something Canada’s coaches thought a lot about when picking the roster.
“They knew it coming in that there was a potential they’d have to move to the wing. So that was a big part of kind of the education coming in,” Cooper said.
A good example, he added, was Nick Suzuki. The Montreal Canadien’s top centre is being used in a multitude of different roles in Milan that he wouldn’t normally see in the NHL, including the wing.
“Suzuki’s a Swiss Army knife,” Cooper said. “That kid can play anywhere. He can play goal if you ask him to.”
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