MILAN — Team USA had just tied the game late and an entire country was on pins and needles.
It was the intermission before overtime of the 2010 gold medal game in Vancouver. Team Canada captain Scott Niedermayer spoke up, hoping to calm the frayed nerves of a dressing room that was a little rattled after giving up a late-game lead.
“It was nothing out of the ordinary, but you get into those situations where it gets a little hairy, the nerves start coming out, the mind kind of leads you down the wrong path,’’ Niedermayer, humble as always, told The Athletic over the phone Wednesday. “The message was just, ‘Believe in each other. Trust your teammates. If we keep doing things the right way, that we have a chance to win a hockey game.’
“And I’m sure somewhere along those lines it was the same thing with Sid today,’’ Niedermayer added.
That would be Sidney Crosby who Niedermayer was referring to.
Of course, it was Crosby who would score the “Golden Goal” in that overtime period. Over the years, Crosby has spoken about Niedermayer’s leadership from that Olympic team and how he learned from it.
An injured Crosby addressed the team before the third period on Wednesday.
His message?
“‘Go get it, boys,’’’ head coach Jon Cooper said after a dramatic, come-from-behind, overtime win over the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals. “There was a lot more than that. But, you know, he’s a true leader. And … they don’t want this to be the end of the tournament for him.’’
I bet you could hear a pin drop as a hobbled No. 87 delivered those words to a room full of players who look up to him in every which way.
“He understands it’s about the team, it’s about the team having success,’’ Niedermayer said. “Nothing would surprise me about what he would say and how the guys would respond. There’s a lot of respect for him for sure. So none of that surprises me.’’
They needed the pep talk. Adversity hit Team Canada in waves on Wednesday. A Czech team that came out swinging. A Canadian icon injured. A go-ahead goal by the Czechs, which replays show had six of their skaters on the ice.
Punch after punch after punch. Emotions running high. That scary feeling of an underdog ripping your life-long Olympic dream away from you.
It was all right there. And you know what? With the minutes ticking away late in the third period, down 3-2, there was no sign of panic on that Canadian bench.
No. 87’s leadership was still being felt.
“The group is super comfortable being uncomfortable,’’ said Cooper. “And that’s what it is. It was calm. Everybody had complete faith in whoever was going over the boards; it just felt it was like a matter of time, it was going to happen.’’
Added Nathan MacKinnon: “It’s a game that’s very emotional. You’re trying to stay in the moment. I thought the bench was really positive all game, even though it was back and forth.’’
Nick Suzuki, who replaced Crosby on a line between Mitch Marner and Mark Stone, played the first hero as his amazing re-direction tied it with 3:27 left in the third period.
That set up Marner’s overtime heroics, the biggest goal in his career. And a crisis averted for the world’s most hockey-obsessed nation.
“A weight lifted off our shoulders, for sure,’’ said 19-year-old star Macklin Celebrini. “Just seeing that puck go in, knowing that we won the game … it was a good feeling for all of us.”
Ho-hum, just another three-point (one goal, two assists) night for Celebrini, who has owned these Olympics.
But his thoughts, like everyone else on Team Canada, were of concern when Crosby left the game injured, unable to put weight on his right leg after taking a hit from Radko Gudas.
“It’s super tough,’’ Celebrini said. “He’s the leader, captain, heart and soul of our team. He’s a guy that everyone looks to, so for him to go down, it was tough, but I think we did a good job rallying and staying on the gas.”
Added Connor McDavid: “Obviously disappointing. Never fun, never easy to see your captain go down like that.”
The natural motivation that came from Crosby’s address to the team was self-evident in how each Team Canada player talked about it postgame. They would go through a wall for their captain. They didn’t want his Olympic career to end that way on this night.
“I can see how they have that respect for him and that would definitely be a motivating factor,” said Niedermayer. “It’s tough to see a guy like that who has done so much, having to leave the game and who knows what it means for the rest of the Olympics. But I’m sure guys will use that as motivation because guys have all the respect in the world for him and rightly so.
“I don’t think you can ask anything more from a hockey player, to be honest,’’ added Niedermayer. “Never mind how he plays and the success he has, but how he handles himself and treats people. It’s all of it, right?’’
Cooper postgame didn’t have an update on Crosby, but the captain underwent testing, according to a league source. Everyone hopes it wasn’t his last game as a Canadian Olympian. Everyone is hoping he can come back before the end of the tournament. But there was no way of knowing that in the immediate aftermath of Wednesday.
Crosby’s closest pals from Nova Scotia couldn’t hide their concern, either.
“I mean it’s tough,’’ MacKinnon said. “… He’s the man, we want him on the bench, we want him on the team. It sucks he got hurt but we had to stay focused and just keep going.”
Added Marchand: “Yeah it’s tough when you lose a guy like that, obviously one of the best ever to play the game. Such a big character on the bench and in the room. Big presence in big moments. But you don’t have a choice, you’ve got to keep going. It was great that the team came together and battled through that adversity tonight. You have to give the Czechs a lot of credit.”
You sure do. The Czech Republic sleepwalked through its 3-2 win over Denmark on Tuesday in the qualifying playoffs and showed zero evidence they were going to try to be dragon-slayers 24 hours later.
They were physical and aggressive and took the game to Canada. It was a gutsy, gutsy performance by the Czechs, who have eliminated Canada three years in a row in the world junior championships.
“We’re a mature group that believes in each other,’’ said Gudas, who played a whale of a game. “We know we can play with anybody and showed that today. That was our best game. We battled for each other, we skated for each other, we laid our body on the line for each other. …
“I don’t think anybody picked us,’’ added Gudas. “So, I was really happy with the guys, the way they performed, the way they handled this game, the pressure, the stars on the other side. We didn’t care who was out there, we just played for each other, we played hard.’’
They almost pulled it off. It was almost Nagano 1998 all over again when Dominik Hasek and the Czechs upset Wayne Gretzky and Eric Lindros in the semifinals of the NHL’s first Olympics.
But not on this day. Adversity knocked Team Canada down. But not out.
Which might make Team Canada stronger for the rest of the way.
“I think it’s good to have a little adversity like this,’’ said MacKinnon. “You know, a humbling, hard game. We won our first games — 5-0, 5-1, 10-2 — so it’s good to have a little adversity and keep us a little more humble maybe.”
If these were best-of-seven series, it would be hard to bet against Team Canada. The cream would rise to the top by Game 7. But the thing about these one-game knockout scenarios is that anything can happen. The drama can be unrivaled in that sense. And we got a dose of it on Wednesday at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena.
“That’s the great thing about this tournament,’’ Cooper said. “This is the Olympic Games. This is the best of the best. This is why all the players want to come to this, because they want to show who they are, and they want to flex. And if you think you’re rolling through this tournament, you’re sorely mistaken.
“And yes, we like the fact that we won the first three games and didn’t have to play for the qualification game. Hell, yeah. But that doesn’t mean you’re gonna keep on winning. It doesn’t mean because you got the Maple Leaf on your jersey that hey, oh my gosh, you’re gonna be first.
“You’ve got to work to that,’’ continued Cooper, the passion oozing out of his pores. “And the guys in there know it. So we came here to play six games. We’ve played four. We’ve gotten better in four, and we’re going to get better in game five. And that’s the mission this group is on. And whether it’s the opponent or somebody said, you beat him before, did the Czechs come in here saying we’re losing? No way. You know, they came in here saying, Canada ain’t beating us twice. And they were nearly right.’’