If anyone was wondering if a power play featuring Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Sam Reinhart and Cale Makar would work, your question was quickly answered Wednesday night. It’s a yes.

It took next to no time for Team Canada to strike against Sweden as the 4-Nations Face-Off began. Just 44 seconds into the tournament opening game, William Nylander got his stick up on MacKinnon, giving Canada an early man advantage.

MacKinnon won the draw as the puck flew to the opposite corner, where McDavid was quick to pick it up. He dished it off to Makar to get the puck back seconds later, before he had another quick back-and-forth pass with Crosby, who was down low in the corner. “The Kid” would take the puck to his backhand, firing a no-look pass across the ice to MacKinnon, who just 12 seconds into the power play, gave Canada the lead.

This unit spent time working together earlier this week in practice trying to build some chemistry, which is what MacKinnon told Oilersnation’s Tyler Yaremchuk.

“You’re trying to communicate as much as possible to get a feel for what guys like to do and then when its game time we’re just playing. The talking is over,” MacKinnon said. “(We’re) trying to just build as much chemistry as possible and when you do speak a lot to each other and really break things down, there’s less guessing there.

“At the end of the day, it’s not a complicated thing. We’re going to try be aggressive and have Cale shoot a ton of pucks and get it back to make some plays”

Any opposing teams will surely need to keep disciplined in their games against Canada, because this power play is clearly going to be an issue for other teams.

Canada would carry a 2-0 lead at the time of writing, with Brad Marchand scoring a goal assisted by Brayden Point and Seth Jarvis with seven minutes left in the first.

Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.