Flyers’ Travis Konecny faces an anxious wait ahead of 4 Nations Face-Off title game: ‘Whatever it takes to win’

BOSTON ― Watch Travis Konecny play one shift and there’s a good chance you’ll see him happen upon some mischief.

The Flyers winger has built an All-Star career by scoring goals and climbing under opponents’ skin. Standing just 5-foot-10 and weighing less than 200 pounds, Konecny barks and bites like someone much bigger. Whether a chirp here, a face wash there, or a bit of sword fighting after the whistle, “TK” is never too far away from the fracas when it breaks out on the ice. He’s the one who started it a lot of times.

But on Monday — maybe for the first time in his professional career — Konecny represented a relative choir boy while playing on a line for Team Canada with hockey supervillains Brad Marchand and Sam Bennett. So what was it like playing with two other serial agitators, guys who consistently appear on every short list for players you’d least like to face?

» READ MORE: Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim once ‘hated each other.’ Now the inseparable ‘Travii’ have reached the highest level of the sport.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Konecny said Tuesday with the sly grin of a younger brother who has just framed you with your parents.

“Two really, really good players, [I] have a lot of respect for them both,” added Konecny about his new linemates in Canada’s 5-3 win over Finland.

“And yes, it was a lot of fun jumping in there and getting a vibe for how they play and feeling each other out throughout the first period and then we got it going after that.”

Konecny will hope his line, which started Monday’s win in an effort to generate some early energy, did enough to convince Canada coach Jon Cooper to keep him in the lineup for Thursday’s 4 Nations Face-Off finale against the United States. The Flyers star says he does not know yet if he will play vs. the Americans and won’t find out until Wednesday morning. Either way, Konecny has relished the experience of wearing the maple leaf on such a big stage and says that winning is all that matters at this point.

“If I’m in the game, really exciting,” Konecny said. “Whatever it takes to win, the whole team wants to win and it doesn’t matter if you are playing or not.”

While Konecny, who is on pace for a career-high 88 points, anxiously waits to see if his name will appear on the lineup board, his reputation as an agitator may prove to be the deciding factor in his case, especially on a Canada team where every player is one of their NHL team’s top scorers. In Saturday’s 3-1 loss to Team USA, a game that Konecny did not play in, the Americans were the aggressors with Matthew and Brady Tkachuk doing their best Dean Portman and Fulton Reed impressions by picking fights within three seconds of puck drop.

Could Cooper opt for the experienced Konecny to have one more guy to provoke the Tkachuk brothers and get them off their games? Barring a late injury or illness, the decision likely comes down to Konecny and Seth Jarvis, the Carolina Hurricanes 23-year-old. Konecny, who started Game 1 of the tournament against Sweden but sat out Canada’s second contest vs. the U.S., took Jarvis’ place on Monday vs. Finland. In a team-low 12 minutes and 11 seconds, Konecny tallied two shots, one hit, and was a minus-1 vs. the Finns.

If Konecny does get the nod in Thursday’s title game, it will be a full-circle moment for the Ontario native:

“Yeah, it’s been that way since I was a kid,” Konecny said of the historic U.S.-Canada rivalry. “You know, any time you see that matchup, [you’re] probably flopping on the couch watching that. So now I [hopefully] get to be part of a big game on a big, big stage here. And like I said, it will be a lot of fun and hopefully we get the outcome we want.”

» READ MORE: John Tortorella is happy to reunite with Mike Sullivan on the U.S. hockey coaching staff

While a lot has been made about the Tkachuk brothers and rightfully so, they will no longer be the only set of siblings representing the red, white, and blue.

That’s because U.S. coach Mike Sullivan nonchalantly dropped the biggest news bomb of the tournament on Tuesday morning, revealing Vancouver Canucks superstar Quinn Hughes, the older brother of American forward Jack Hughes, will be joining up with the U.S. as an injury replacement for defenseman Charlie McAvoy.

McAvoy, who was admitted to a Boston hospital Monday night with an upper-body injury, was officially ruled out Tuesday morning. The Daily Faceoff reported that McAvoy, who also happens to be Sullivan’s son-in-law, is being treated for an infection that stemmed from the initial injury.

Hughes, who won the Norris Trophy last season as the NHL’s best defenseman and was on the initial U.S. roster before pulling out due to injury, would be a monumental addition to the USA blue line if he is eligible to play vs. the Canadians. Sullivan was unsure as of Tuesday morning whether Hughes would be eligible to play over one of Team USA’s six healthy defensemen or if he was just a safety net in case the U.S. endured another injury or illness before Thursday.

» READ MORE: Sam Ersson takes advantage of 4 Nations Face-Off opportunity and shines for Sweden

The gates have seemed to move regarding injury replacement players’ eligibility throughout the tournament. Canada went through a similar scenario with Thomas Harley, who was called in as an extra body after Shea Theodore was ruled out of the tournament due to injury and Cale Makar fell ill. Harley played on Saturday with Makar out but returned to standby status on Monday as Makar returned to the lineup. Cooper said Tuesday that his understanding is that Harley is not eligible to play over one of Canada’s other six defensemen assuming they are all healthy.

“[The limitations] we were given were that we weren’t going to play short. So that was the only way, [Harley] could come in,” Cooper said. Asked if he could play over a healthy defenseman like Travis Sanheim, Cooper quickly replied: “No.”

We’ll see if the rules change again before Thursday or if the U.S. has another injury to worry about. If Hughes can play, it would certainly be a game-changer for the Americans. Stay tuned.

While Konecny’s lineup status remains uncertain, at least one of the “Travii” will play on Thursday. Sanheim, who picked up an assist on Monday for Canada and has been playing alongside veteran Drew Doughty, will skate in his third straight game after sitting out the opener against Sweden. … Both the U.S. and Canada used Tuesday as an off day to rest and heal.