MILAN — Less than three minutes into Saturday’s group-stage game, Brady Tkachuk found himself battling for the puck in the corner with Denmark’s Alexander True, a massive, marble block of a former NHLer. Tkachuk bumped True to try to get him off the puck. Bumped him again. Spun off him. Tangled him up. Shoved him into the boards. Briefly bear-hugged him and mashed him into the glass. Gave him a forearm shiver in the back. Another one. Another one. Even threw something of a rabbit punch.
Tkachuk was going to move this guy off the puck if it took all night. It almost did.
Tkachuk is an extremely gifted hockey player, big and strong and good around the net, yes, but more skilled than he gets credit for. You don’t put up three straight 30-goal seasons without having a ton of talent. But Tkachuk’s not a lock for 100 points every season. He is, however, pretty much a lock for 100 penalty minutes.
And it’s that other stuff that makes Tkachuk special. The way he battled True early in a game in which the U.S. fell behind early. The way he finished the first period with his stick wedged in Oliver Lauridsen’s midsection and his fist planted in Lauridsen’s face as they battled in front of the net. The way he celebrated — all fist-pumps and finger-points and expletives and smiles — after he scored a desperately needed goal midway through the game with the Americans somehow trailing the Danes.
“I don’t know,” Tkachuk said of the impetus behind his fiery celebration following a 6-3 Team USA victory. “It’s a pretty cool feeling scoring for your country.”
There’s that, too. The way he speaks about wearing the red, white and blue, the obvious joy and passion with which he’s playing in these Olympics. There’s no letter stitched on Tkachuk’s sweater, but there’s one etched on his heart all the same. This is his team, maybe more than anybody else’s. That Tkachuk DNA — his and his brother Matthew’s — is this team’s DNA. For better or worse, Team USA always sees itself in the mold of the 1980 Olympians and the 1996 World Cup champions — scrappy, feisty, physical, pains in the ass.
And nobody’s a bigger pain in the ass than Brady Tkachuk.
“He’s a beast,” U.S. coach Mike Sullivan said. “His energy is contagious. He’s so vocal on the bench, in between periods. He’s a positive guy. He drags everybody into the fight, literally and figuratively. And that’s what we love about him. He’s an elite player. I think his hockey sense is underrated and flies under the radar because I think when people think of Brady, they think of his brute and his brawn. And he certainly brings that element. But I don’t think he gets the credit for how intelligent he is as a hockey player. He’s a terrific player.”
Tkachuk is all energy, all the time. He fights for every inch, every shift. Say what you will about his style, the way he skirts the line between playing hard and playing dirty, and his sometimes abrasive attitude. The fact is, Tkachuk does — as you repeatedly hear his teammates and coaches say — drag his team into the fight.
And, good grief, did the Americans need dragging on Saturday night.
For the first 30 minutes of this game, Tkachuk looked like he was playing in the Olympic Games in Milan, throwing his body around and charging after every loose puck as if the fate of his nation depended on it. The rest of his teammates looked like they were playing in a September exhibition game in Milwaukee, coasting and clumsily coughing up pucks. Zach Werenski threw the puck away on an attempted rim and moments later kicked the puck past Jeremy Swayman, his own goalie, just 1:40 into the game. Swayman waved at a 95-foot shot that somehow beat him cleanly 10 minutes later. Matthews was tentative early on, big Tage Thompson was repeatedly pushed off the puck, and the rest of the team was mostly standing around watching. Other than a brief flash from Matt Boldy, who grabbed his own rebound and scored on a wraparound, the Americans looked disjointed and, worse, disengaged.
It was one thing for Denmark to lead 2-1 midway through the first period, especially given the fluky nature of the second goal. It was quite another thing for Denmark to still be leading 2-1 midway through the second period. This is the best, deepest and most talented American team ever assembled. Denmark, meanwhile, didn’t even start its No. 1 goalie, Frederik Andersen. Hockey’s fluky, yes, but not that fluky.
It was an unacceptable performance on this stage, in this tournament, after all the hype and histrionics that led the NHL back to the Olympics after 12 years. Just as it was an unacceptable coaching blunder by Sullivan to dress Connor Hellebuyck — Sunday’s starter against Germany — as Swayman’s backup instead of Jake Oettinger. Swayman was clearly rattled and nervous in the early going, but Sullivan couldn’t pull him because he had to save Hellebuyck. In hindsight, we can all laugh about Swayman’s gaffe — he joked he was colorblind, so the unusually dark boards weren’t to blame for him losing the puck. Hey, he won, that’s all that matters. But at the time, it seemed catastrophic. And it was clearly affecting the entire team.
Then Tkachuk did what Tkachuk does — he dragged his team into the fight. His one-timer off a Jack Eichel faceoff win at 9:26 of the second — and his joyous celebration — finally seemed to wake up the heavily pro-American crowd and his teammates. Fifty-seven seconds later, Eichel scored off his own faceoff win. By the time Noah Hanifin made it 4-2 seven minutes later, Team USA looked like Team USA again. Another Swayman softie brought Denmark back within a goal with just 2.6 seconds left in the second period, but it still felt academic. The Americans had settled down and ratcheted it up.
Brady Tkachuk celebrates his goal during Team USA’s preliminary round game against Denmark on Saturday. (RvS.Media / Monika Majer / Getty Images)
Matthews re-engaged, teeing up a Jake Guentzel one-timer to make it 5-3, then taking on four Danes all by himself in a goalmouth skirmish. Jack Hughes made it 6-3 later in the period, and the pressure release was palpable inside Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. Tkachuk was the one who loosened the valve.
“He’s one of our big dogs,” Swayman said of Tkachuk. “We’ve got a lot of that on this team, and he’s such a natural leader. He is a powerful human being and he plays that way, and it just (gives) confidence to the entire group.”
A 6-3 victory over Denmark isn’t terribly impressive, and it won’t help the Americans catch Canada for the top seed in terms of goal differential.
But it’s a hell of a lot better than a loss. And Tkachuk was the catalyst. He always seems to be. The Danes were coming for him all game, and he gleefully welcomed them every time. Even with the game well in hand, he was right in the middle of the action, getting into one last violent scrum behind Swayman’s net with five minutes to go.
Tkachuk wasn’t at his best, either — he was frustrated with how his puck play was going, so he leaned on what he does best, what he can always do. The hands weren’t working, so maybe the fists — and forearms, and elbows, and hips, and his entire torso — would.
“That’s what I pride myself on,” he said. “If I feel like I’m not playing well with the puck and making plays, I can fall back on that and try to make an impact physically to get the hands going.”
It’s gold or bust for the Americans, but they have a long way to go and a short amount of time to get there. The Olympics is longer than the 4 Nations Face-Off was, but it’s not nearly as long as an NHL season. There’s no easing in, no feeling things out. The chemistry has to be instant, the structure set, the intensity unrelenting.
Squint and you can see it, what a finished product would look like, a team that can hang with a line of Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini, that can match the depth of a team with Sidney Crosby as its third center, one that can outwork and outmuscle Canada and Sweden in a do-or-die game. But it’s not there yet. Not by a long shot.
Tkachuk only sees the positive in that.
“That’s what’s good about our group,” Tkachuk said. “We’re just scratching at it right now, and it’s going to work out that we’re going to peak at the right time.”
When you watch the Americans against Latvia and Denmark, you have doubts. But when you hear Brady Tkachuk say that — when you watch him celebrate a goal, when you see him rag-dolling a 6-foot-5 opponent in the corner, when you notice how his teammates follow his lead — it’s tough not to believe.