What hockey needs is a border war

With the World Cup in mothballs, a 3-game U.S.-Canada series would stir the pot.

Tage Thompson is 6-foot-7. He has 26 goals and 24 assists for the Buffalo Sabres, who got him from St. Louis as an extra log on the fire when they traded Ryan O’Reilly.

Thompson was born in Glendale, AZ.

Jason Robertson was a second-round pick in the 2017 draft. He soon made Dallas Stars’ management look wise. He, too, has 50 points.

Robertson was born in Arcadia, CA.

Auston Matthews is the defending Hart Trophy winner. The Toronto Maple Leafs’ center has been a dominator for five years and has 259 goals, as befitting a first-overall pick.

Matthews was born in San Ramon, Ca. and grew up in Scottsdale, Az.

From sea to shining sea, American hockey is producing headline players. Maybe not as many as Canada, and maybe the U.S. will never match the hotbed to the north.

But after the postponement of the World Cup of Hockey, that boondoggle that the NHL prefers to stage instead of letting its players compete for gold at the Olympics, there is a major event that cries for a place on the calendar. Team USA needs to play Team Canada, preferably in a 3-game series, preferably in place of the All-Star Game.

This idea has been pumped by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman, the guys on the “32 Thoughts” podcast, aand they have expanded it to suggest a best-of-3 with Sweden vs. Finland, and Czechia vs. Slovakia. Certainly the players would savor this. Except for the old encounters with the Soviet teams, there’s never been better hockey on this continent than in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, and particularly the 3-2 gold medal win by Canada in overtime over the Americans, thanks to Sidney Crosby. No one in the arena that day wanted it to end, except maybe for some stressed-out Canadian executives.

So let’s do it again. Game One in Toronto, Game Two in Buffalo, Game Three to be played after a coin flip between Montreal and Boston. Or Game One in Seattle, Game Two in Edmonton, and then flip between Las Vegas and Edmonton for Game 3. The locale really doesn’t matter. Hockey players are the most competitive people in our four major pro sports, and the moments they’ll produce will create new fans and motivate old ones.

This is what a U.S. team might look like:

Forwards (center-left wing-right wing):

Thompson (Buffalo), Robertson (Dallas), Alex Tuch (Buffalo).

Matthews (Toronto), Matthew Tkachuk (Florida), Alex DeBrincat (Ottawa).

Jack Hughes (New Jersey), Johnny Gaudreau (Columbus), Kyle Connor (Winnipeg).

Joe Pavelski (Dallas), Brady Tkachuk (Ottawa), Patrick Kane (Chicago).

Defense:

Adam Fox (Rangers), Charlie McAvoy (Boston).

Quinn Hughes (Vancouver), John Carlson (Washington).

Jaccob Slavin (Carolina), Seth Jones (Chicago).

Goalies:

Connor Hellebuyck (Winnipeg), Jake Oettinger (Dallas).

Such a lineup would not include Trevor Zegras (Anaheim), Jake Guentzel (Pittsburgh), Matty Beniers (Seattle), and Brock Nelson (Islanders) up front, or Shane Gostisbehere (Arizona) and Torrey Krug (St. Louis) on the blueline. The selectors of American teams have rarely had such tough calls in the past.

That’s always a problem for the Canadians, who, in 2010, couldn’t find room for Jeff Carter. This would be their possible starting grid:

Forwards:

Connor McDavid (Edmonton), Zach Hyman (Edmonton), Mitch Marner (Toronto).

Crosby (Pittsburgh), Pierre-Luc Dubois (Winnipeg), Claude Giroux (Ottawa)

Patrice Bergeron (Boston), Brad Marchand (Boston), Mark Stone (Vegas).

Nathan MacKinnon (Colorado), Carter Verhaeghe (Florida), Nick Suzuki (Montreal).

Defense:

Cale Makar (Colorado), Alex Pietrangelo (Vegas).

Dougie Hamilton (New Jersey), Shea Theodore (Vegas).

Josh Morrissey (Winnipeg), Brent Burns (Carolina).

Goalies:

Logan Thompson (Vegas), Tristan Jarry (Pittsburgh).

Oddly, Canada has a relative shortage of left-hand-shot defensemen. Suzuki is a center by trade, but the Canadians are well-stocked down the middle and Suzuki is too good to stay home. Stephen Stamkos, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Darnell Nurse, Jeff Skinner and Travis Konecny do not make the cut.

If you’re wondering if Marc-Andre Fleury should be along for the ride in goal, that’s a valid point.

On paper, Canada’s first line and its power play would be terrifying. Crosby, Bergeron and Marchand would be towering leaders. And if you were to sculpt a defense pair, you would use Makar and Pietrangelo as your models.

But the American team, on paper, should be superior in goal and probably in forward depth.

This will not happen this year, of course, or probably ever. But, as an exercise, it shows how well the NHL’s coast-to-coast philosophy is working. Matthews did not come from a hockey family and was considered a better baseball player. He didn’t like baseball’s pace, and he became a fan of the Coyotes. That is why commissioner Gary Bettman does not want them to move, in the face of a steady wave of civic apathy.

It’s something to dream about as the NHL takes a three-day holiday break, which is another thing the league does right. The NBA will have its usual quintuple-header on Christmas Day, featuring nearly every headline player who is healthy, but this time it will be competing with three somewhat drab NFL games.

That will be our next reverie. Considering that four of the five best players in the NBA last year were from Greece, Serbia, Cameroon and Slovenia, how about an All-Star Game with the U.S. vs. The World? Start putting that together, class. Googling is permitted.