Ahead of Canada vs. USA 4 Nations final, Brandon Hagel throws down gauntlet

BOSTON – On a team of superstars, players like Brandon Hagel can get overlooked.

That is just as true with the Tampa Bay Lightning as it is with Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off.

So, Hagel took advantage of an off day at the tournament to step into the spotlight and throw some gas on what was already a raging bonfire ahead of Canada’s rematch with the United States in Thursday’s tournament final.

Hagel, of course, had a starring role in the first Canada-USA game Saturday in Montreal, dropping the gloves with Matthew Tkachuk off the opening faceoff and riling up the crowd afterward by throwing both hands in the air.

That came up again Tuesday, and when Hagel was asked if Canada needed to initiate that physical aspect itself Thursday, he didn’t miss his mark.

“We’re out there playing for the flag, not the cameras,” Hagel said. “That’s a part of Canada that we have in there. We don’t need to initiate anything, we don’t have any group chats going on, we’re going out there playing our game and giving it everything and doing it for our country.”

That, of course, is a reference to the Tkachuk brothers revealing after the game Saturday that they were on a group chat with J.T. Miller that morning planning to start the game with fights, which is exactly what the three of them did.

Hagel made it sound like it was contrived – performative even. But he wasn’t done there. There was more patriotism to come.

On the people who thought the 4 Nations was going to be akin to an All-Star Game: “I was thinking to myself, laying in bed the night before the (first) game, if this is going to be an All-Star type of thing then I’m going to be so out of place because I’m going and putting my head through a wall tomorrow. That was my mentality going into the game, and everyone did the same.”

On what kind of atmosphere he’s expecting at TD Garden for the final: “I’m sure it’s going to be pretty good. I don’t think it’s going to top Montreal, though.”

In other words, Hagel was on a roll.

But he’s also been on a roll on the ice, and his line with Lightning teammate Anthony Cirelli and Toronto Maple Leafs superstar Mitch Marner was quietly effective for Canada against Finland on Monday.

Coach Jon Cooper doled out ice time relatively evenly among his forwards in that game, which is a luxury you have as a coach when you have a 4-0 lead, but the combination of Marner – as elite a two-way winger as you will find – with Cirelli and Hagel showed signs the trio can be trusted with some important assignments in the final, especially with Team USA having the last change as the home team.

“Cirelly and ‘Hags,’ they play a different brand of hockey than Mitch,” Cooper said. “But they both need each other; Mitch needs them, and they need Mitch. He can create for them, they’re the worker bees and he’s the one that kind of organizes things in the offensive zone. Sometimes you get labeled a checker, sometimes you get labeled a scorer, but they need each other. I thought that line was great.”

Cooper had been vocal about his admiration for Marner’s game and was trying to find him a role in the top six, but it simply wasn’t working. Moving another Lightning player, Brayden Point, into that top-six group and taking Marner out appears to have provided the balance Cooper has been looking for. Point looked great playing with Connor McDavid and Mark Stone; the line of Nathan MacKinnon, Sidney Crosby and Sam Reinhart produced three goals; and the checking line of Sam Bennett, Brad Marchand and Travis Konecny was effective, though if there’s a change to be made up front, that may be where it comes.

“When you come to these tournaments, you have no exhibitions, no (pretournament) games, you’re kind of thrown into the fire and you’ve got to see what works,” Cooper said. “So we’ve done a little dabbling, and then after the U.S. game, we had two games under our belt and I had a pretty good feeling of where the pieces fit the puzzle. Fortunately, it worked out for us (Monday).

“I felt the lines, all of them, they all fit.”

Cirelli and Hagel were the two players everyone looked at a bit side-eyed when the full Canada roster was announced, as if the coach was bringing his guys. There is some truth to that, but there is a lot of merit that went into those selections, especially as a tandem. Hagel and Cirelli have played almost exclusively together all season with the Lightning, and in a short tournament, that chemistry has enormous value. But Hagel is also the second-leading scorer on the Lightning with 62 points in 55 games, ahead of Point and Jake Guentzel. Only five Canadian forwards in the league have more points than Hagel.

“He’s an elite forward in this league, everything he brings to the game, whether it’s on the D side of the puck or the offensive side, he does it really well,” Cirelli said of his linemate. “He can make plays, he can put the puck in the net. But on top of that, his defensive game, his two-way game, his backchecking, his lifting sticks and winning puck battles, all the little things you need to do to win a game, that’s what he does.”

As for Cirelli, he has grown into one of the prominent two-way centers in the NHL, finishing in the top five in Selke Trophy voting twice in his career.

Hagel pointed that out on Tuesday, along with how much his own defensive game has been influenced by Cirelli ever since he was traded to Tampa in 2022.

“I appreciate him a lot, coming to Tampa and learning how to play on the defensive side of the puck, and I think I kind of brought the offensive side out of him,” Hagel said. “He’s always had it, he’s a very skilled player, but he’s always put that defense first. This year he’s taken an incredible step of putting that offense in as well, but also being a 200-foot player. It’s cool to watch, but he’s taught me a lot in my two-way game.”

We will see a game Thursday that will spotlight some of the biggest superstars this game has. McDavid. Auston Matthews. MacKinnon. Jack Eichel. Crosby. Jack Hughes. The list goes on.

But it is also likely to be a game won in the trenches. And that is where guys such as Hagel, Cirelli and their new superstar linemate can become major difference-makers.