MONTREAL — Mario Lemieux famously scored his first NHL goal on the first shot during the first shift of his career.
It wasn’t exactly the same Wednesday night at Bell Centre, but the parallels are fun. With Lemieux in attendance, Nathan MacKinnon’s long wait to play for his country in a best-on-best tournament ended with Mario-esque magic in the opening minute.
MacKinnon registered the first hit of the game, drew the first penalty, took the first shot and scored the first goal, all in the opening 56 seconds, of Canada’s thrilling 4-3 overtime win against Sweden to open the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off.
“Everything came quick,” MacKinnon said. “It was an amazing pregame — never been part of a pregame that cool before. Just amazing energy in the building, definitely the coolest I’ve ever been apart of.
“Scoring less than a minute in was amazing. It was a fun game. Obviously pretty stressful. I wish we didn’t make it that stressful on ourselves.”
Lemieux was a surprise guest in the Canadian dressing room and announced the starting lineup to the team, which included MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Devon Toews. Then the Pittsburgh Penguins legend received a long, thunderous ovation on the ice before the opening puck drop that wowed the superstars playing in this contest.
MacKinnon, skating at center between Sidney Crosby and Mark Stone, hit Jonas Brodin along the left wall in the offensive zone. Six seconds later, William Nylander clipped him with a high stick.
Canada’s top power play has arguably the most talent on one unit since the 1987 Canada Cup — Makar, MacKinnon, Crosby, Connor McDavid and Sam Reinhart. They needed 12 seconds to score on Canada’s lone extra-man chance of the night.
McDavid sent the puck to Crosby near the right post. He turned and sent a pass backhanded pass across to MacKinnon in the left circle. And then Bell Centre exploded again.
“Obviously there was a lot of talk about that first unit,” MacKinnon said. “A lot of nerves, obviously I haven’t played best-on-best for Team Canada ever. Definitely a lot of adrenaline, a lot of nerves. It was nice to get an open net early. Definitely settled me in. Really great play by Connor and Sid.”
This looked like it could be a runaway after fellow Nova Scotian Brad Marchand made it a 2-0 lead, but Sweden played much better in the final 40 minutes of regulation and forced overtime. MacKinnon was a monster in overtime, racking up four of Canada’s eight shots and terrorizing Sweden with his signature end-to-end dashes with the puck.
Crosby set up Mitch Marner for the game-winner, collecting his third primary assist and writing another chapter in his fairytale career. This was the first chapter for the trio of Avalanche players in best-on-best hockey for their country.
Makar played 28:06, most in the game. Toews played 25:53, second-most for Canada. The Canadians had to play with five defensemen for the final two-plus periods because of an injury to Vegas’ Shea Theodore.
MacKinnon played 19:56 and finished with a game-high six shots on goal. He also tied for the team lead with three blocked shots. He was asked afterward if he thinks the NHL should adopt the international overtime rules, which includes 10 minutes of 3-on-3.
“No,” he said with a laugh. “We were actually just talking about that in our room. Maybe seven? I normally feel better than that. It was just an adrenaline dump, I think. But yeah, I can’t believe I looked off Connor (McDavid) on that 2-on-1, but honestly, I could barely see on that rush I was so tired.
“I was happy when (Marner) scored because I didn’t have much left to give.”
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