MONTREAL – The night started with the faithful welcoming back hometown hero Mario Lemieux to an electric atmosphere in the Bell Centre.
It ended with Team Canada serving notice there is no place like home.
After surrendering a two-goal lead in the third period, Team Canada got its act together as Mitch Marner scored the winner in a thrilling 4-3 victory in overtime to play the role of hero.
Led by a three-point night from Sidney Crosby, Canada also got goals from Brad Marchand, Nathan MacKinnon and Mark Stone on Wednesday night.
Overtime was incredible with both teams going toe-to-toe and Marner ended at 6:06 of 3-on-3 OT. He hasn’t cheered in this building before but even the most faithful Habs fan couldn’t hide their excitement.
“It was super cool,” Marner said with a smile. “I really just tried to enjoy the moment after. The building was rocking and it was nice to have them cheering for me instead of against me.
“It was a great play by Sid, he carried the puck up the whole ice and I just tried to get space for him. He made a drop pass and I just tried to get a shot off as quick as I could.”
Moments before Canada stepped on the ice, Lemieux was welcomed into the dressing room by coach Jon Cooper to read the club’s starting lineup.
One change we may see in Game 2 against the United States on Saturday is Adin Hill in the Canadian net. Jordan Binnington wasn’t at his best, especially in the third, but he did step up in OT.
Swedish goalie Filip Gustavsson was solid and gave his club a chance to win.
STAND ON GUARD FOR THEE
There has been no shortage of debate about Canada’s goaltending heading into this tournament and this was a chance for Binnington to answer his critics because he’s having a sub-par year with the St. Louis Blues.
Cooper noted before the opener he’d rather stick with one goalie through the tourney and the decision was made to start Binnington ahead of Hill against Sweden.
Binnington did nothing to quiet the noise as Sweden erased a two-goal deficit in the third. Joel Eriksson Ek scored the third goal on 15 shots by firing high on Binnington at 8:59 of the third.
Adrian Kempe scored 1:54 of the third to pull the Swedes back to within a goal. Binnington couldn’t do a lot about it, but he’d want the first one back.
The Swedes got on the board on their ninth shot of the game midway through the second. That cut Canada’s lead to 2-1 and came on a shot from Jonas Brodin in the right circle that beat Binnington high at 9:33.
SID IS SPECIAL
There was concern about how quickly this group would gel and there were no worries because it happened fast.
Probably, faster than anyone expected.
Crosby took his game to another level and there was nothing the Swedes could do to deal with that aspect. There were some nervous moments when they got on the board, but Crosby took care of business.
He did an incredible job spinning off a Gustav Forsling driving to the net and then throwing a pass to Stone in the slot. He fired it by Gustavsson on a shot he probably should have stopped.
That came at 17:28 of the second and restored a two-goal lead for Canada heading to the third period.
It’s hard to imagine Canada without him. He’s a gamer every time he puts on the sweater and had such good chemistry with MacKinnon and Stone.
SWEDISH SPOILERS
The Swedes, led by coach Sam Hallam, didn’t throw in the towel and they deserve credit.
They had to get up off the mat because Canada looked it was on a mission and looked unbeatable.
The Swedes only registered three shots in the opening 20 minutes and didn’t register their first until 16:15 of the period. Canada served notice with the quick start that this night wouldn’t be easy.
Even Marchand, the feisty Boston Bruins winger, who is normally loathed in this part of the world received cheers from the faithful. He took a pass from Brayden Point and gave Canada a 2-0 lead at 13:15 of the first.
It didn’t take long for the Swedes to find out they had to stay out of the box.
Twelve seconds after William Nylander was sent to the box for high sticking, MacKinnon made the Swedes pay. McDavid to Crosby to MacKinnon and he fired a blast by Gustavsson on the stick side only 56 seconds into the game.
That was the second-fastest goal in history to open an international tournament.
Canada finished the game without defenceman Shea Theodore.
He was sent for further examination on his right wrist after he was hit into the boards early in the second and that means extra defenceman Travis Sanheim may play.