Habs and Bruins, Yankees and Red Sox, Steelers and Ravens. None of these rivalries compare to what was witnessed for the first time in nine years: Canada vs. USA.

The Canadians and Americans had faced off a total of 19 times in best-on-best tournaments since the 1976 Canada Cup, with Canada holding a 14-4-1 advantage over Team USA. It was announced before puck drop that star defender Cale Makar would not be suiting up for Team Canada. Thomas Harley was his late replacement.

No matter how long they were separated, the intensity made its way into the game quicker than anybody thought. Right on the puck drop, Matthew Tkachuk and Brandon Hagel dropped the mitts and began throwing punches. On the next faceoff, Brady Tkachuk and Sam Bennett followed suit. Nine seconds into the period after a save from Binnington, JT Miller and COlton Parayko dropped the gloves to settle their score. Team USA took an additional penalty, putting Canada on the powerplay. With less than 10 seconds into the period, there were 7 men in the penalty boxes.

At 5:31 into the period, Oilers captain Conner McDavid opened the scoring with a beautiful backhand shot past USA goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. Drew Doughty gained the primary assist, with the secondary going to goaltender Jordan Binnington.

“It was fast, tight-checking, competitive, emotional,” McDavid said. “It had everything you would want in a hockey game. It [stinks] it didn’t go our way, but this thing’s far from over.”

Team USA tied the game at 10:15 with a goal from Lightning forward Jake Guentzel, 26 seconds after McAvoy lined up McDavid and laid a big hit on the Canada forward along the left wall in the U.S. defensive zone. There were 31 total hits in the first period, 17 for USA, 14 for Canada.

“That also is a message-sending moment; probably one of the plays of the game,” Matthew Tkachuk said of McAvoy’s hit on McDavid. “They just scored a goal, the building was rocking and Charlie comes there and pops McDavid, like one of the hardest hits I’ve seen.”

The second period was a relatively calm period, both teams playing very well defensively and not giving the other much to work with. That was, until Dylan Larkin broke through for the Americans, scoring on a two-on-one to give Team USA a 2-1 lead.

Canada gained control of the puck for a lot of the third period, but they weren’t able to do much damage. The Americans kept them away from the net very well, blocking shots and closing passing lanes. After Binnington left the ice for an extra attacker with two minutes left of play, Guentzel scored an empty netter for his second of the game to make it 3-1 for Team USA.

“We had the puck for about 180 feet, we couldn’t get it past that extra 20 feet and that’s stuff we’ve got to look at,” Cooper said. “We’ve got to learn from this.”

Canada was in it until the very end. In what really ended as a one goal game, the Canadians played very well and they kept themselves competing against a very tough Team USA. Canada needs to defeat Finland on Monday to advance to the finals to meet the Americans. The 4Nations tournament finals are set to take place in Boston at TD Garden on Thursday at 8pm ET.