BOSTON — As he watched the game in snowy Montreal from a restaurant in temperate Miami, Bruins defenseman Nikita Zadorov found himself getting emotional.
Zadorov is from Russia, which wasn’t part of the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off, so he watched it in Florida. He admitted the first USA-Canada game got to him a bit — especially the three fights to open the game.
“I was sitting in the restaurant in Miami watching on my phone,” he said. “After the third fight — Millsy’s fight (J.T. Miller vs. Colton Parayko)— I had goosebumps. I had tears in my eyes,“ said Zadorov, the NHL’s leader in penalty minutes. ”I was ready to go through the wall in the restaurant. That’s how pumped up I was.”
Zadorov liked the passion that playing best-on-best brought out in the elite players.
“It was cool. That’s what hockey is all about. Guys fighting for each other, fighting for the flag, fighting for their country. It’s great to watch,” he said. “The Saturday game was probably the best hockey I’ve ever watched in my life. Not just the fights. The quality of the hockey, the stakes, the positioning.”
He hoped his homeland would be included in the future. Russia’s status for the 2026 Olympics remains in limbo because of penalties leveled by the IOC on Russia for its aggressive military action in Ukraine.
There are two separate contingency plans for what the 12-team pool would look like with or without Russia.
“The best-on-best, it’s fun. We need to get Russia back up there and have those three teams compete,” Zadorov said. ” We’ll see who is best at it next time.”
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