Breaking news : Team USA coach updates status of injured stars in 4 Nations Face-Off

 

BOSTON — Team USA started its final round-robin game of the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off without three key players and lost another along the way in Monday’s 2-1 loss to Sweden.

Auston Matthews, Charlie McAvoy and and was injured in the first period.

 

Coach Mike Sullivan said the Americans hadn’t begun the process of adding any emergency replacements for Thursday’s championship game against Canada.

He was hopeful that he wouldn’t need to but didn’t rule it out.

“We’re hopeful we’re going to get some of these guys back,” he said. “I would anticipate we would. We’ll see how things play out here over the next day or so. Obviously, there will be contingency planning if we need people.”

Brady Tkachuk was injured during the game. He crashed into the goalpost on a first-period rush and headed to the locker room. He briefly returned but only played one short shift before hurriedly coming off the ice. He did not come back for the second period

 

Brady had a lower-body injury,” Sullivan said. “We held him out for precautionary reasons at the point. I haven’t gotten an update. We’ll see how it responds, but I don’t anticipate it being an issue.”

Matthew Tkachuk has been out since the third period of Saturday’s 3-1 win over Canada. Joining the TNT broadcast on Monday, he intimated that he expected to be back on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Sullivan said that McAvoy, who had participated in morning skate, would sit out the game as Jake Sanderson stepped into the lineup. At the time, it looked like Sullivan was just giving McAvoy a night off.