Scintillating 4 Nations Face-Off has players yearning for more after tired All-Star games

BOSTON — The last nine years of All-Star Games left some hockey fans suspect of the quality of play we’d see at the 4 Nations Face-off.They were sorely mistaken. This was never going to be a series of slow, throw-away All-Star Games, in which hits and even defense are nonexistent. This has certainly been no dull skills competition. This was the NHL’s return to the international stage for the first time in almost a decade. “I think people maybe have this tournament confused for an All-Star Game,” said Team Canada’s Connor McDavid, who had a major hand in designing the skills competition at last year’s All-Star weekend in Toronto, at the beginning of the tournament.“It’s not an All-Star Game.

It’s a competitive event.Everyone wants to win, and you saw that [on the first day of competition on Feb.

12.]”The tournament, hosted in Montreal and Boston over the last 10 days, has thrust hockey into the mainstream spotlight.It wouldn’t have been possible without the undoubted buy-in from the players, who have given everything they have in each game they’ve played.Team Canada coach Jon Cooper has marveled at the way McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon are dumping and chasing pucks. Injuries have inflicted each nation.

That’s how hard they’ve played.The flu has run rampant in each dressing room.Players have fought through it. No one has wanted to miss a second of what has become the most thrilling display for the sport in recent memory. “There’s not one person here at this event that wouldn’t do anything to win this tournament, and I think that’s shared amongst everybody,” said Charlie McAvoy, who played through a shoulder injury in Team USA’s thrilling 3-1 win over Canada in the round-robin, before missing their final two games because it was much worse than initially diagnosed and became infected.

“I don’t know, I’ve never been to an All-Star Game.You can have the All-Star Game.

I’d rather play in this inst...