TORONTO -- Team Canada is coming off its 13th consecutive win in a best-on-best hockey competition, but it's not even the toast of this tournament. Or at least it seems that way.
You can't blame the reigning Olympic champs if they're feeling just a little jealous that their little North American brothers have stolen much of the show so far at the World Cup of Hockey.
Take Wednesday's double-bill at Air Canada Centre, which featured a juxtaposition of two vastly different styles of hockey: one that lifts fans out of their seats while giving coaches heart palpitations, and the other a clinical, masterful display of how to win games at this level.
"Which would you rather watch?"' Team Canada head coach Mike Babcock asked, interrupting my long-winded question after his team's 4-1 win over Europe, knowing very well where I was headed with this.
Finally, I asked Babcock (memo to self: shorten your damn questions), How do you compare both situations?
"Well they're totally different. I like watching that team because there's tons of skill," Babcock said of the 23-and-under North American gang. "I like winning more, though. I just want to win. That's what our players came for, they came to win.''
Boom. That's the crux of it all, right?
Team Canada is all business. It's here to win again. The North American kids were brought here to entertain, to give us a glimpse of the sport's promising future. But in doing so, they're scaring the heck out of everyone else.
Take Sweden, the reigning Olympic silver medalist, the squad with the deepest and most talented blue-line corps in the tournament. The veteran Swedes were already down 2-0 just 1:35 into their game with the North American kids on Wednesday afternoon, and they might as well have been wearing their jockstraps on their heads because they hadn't touched the puck yet.
The ending was wild, too, a thrill-a-second overtime that culminated in Nathan MacKinnon's dizzying dekes to beat Henrik Lundqvist for the game winner.
One could literally hear the buzz in the crowd as fans filtered out of Air Canada Centre after North America's 4-3 win. They knew they had just seen hockey at its most entertaining.
Imagine what it was like being head coach North America head coach Todd McLellan during that OT session.
"I was standing on the bench, saying, 'No, no, no!' and then 'Go, go, go!'" he said of watching his young team's risk-reward, heart-stopping play.
Inside Team Canada's dressing room, the back-to-back Olympic champs were also glued to the TV set, watching a version of hockey they likely haven't played since their teens.
"It's a little different mentality, but the entertainment level is pretty remarkable," Team Canada forward Steven Stamkos said. "We caught the overtime before we got things going in the room. That was exciting hockey. I don't think there were any systems being played, but it was entertaining. The fans were into it. Guys in the room were excited to watch it. Beautiful goal to end it. That's the new wave of the NHL generation that's coming up."
When you're the North American kids and you're playing with house money, life is fun. When you're Canada and you haven't lost a game in best-on-best hockey in 6½ years, the impeccable standard you have set for your team requires surgical precision on both sides of the puck. Mistakes are just not allowed.
"There's definitely some differences," two-time Olympic gold medalist Jonathan Toews said after scoring two goals Wednesday night. "I think the amount of pressure on both teams is a little bit different. The North American team, they go out there and they play. They know that even though maybe they're not as strict with their systems -- if that's the case -- they're working hard. So if they make a mistake and they turn the puck over they've got three guys coming back hard.
"So they're playing pretty responsibly in that regard. It just looks like they're having fun," Toews continued. "They're playing loose and they're not worried about a thing. When you play that way, then that skill can really be unleashed and we're seeing that too. They're a dangerous team. We'll see what happens in the next few days."
If the hockey gods play along and produce a Finland victory over Russia on Thursday, that would propel the North American kiddos into a semifinal matchup against their Team Canada mentors.
Come on, you know you want to see it, the vivid contrast in playing styles.
"It's a little different style than we play, that's for sure," Stamkos said with a smile. "Obviously, with Babs and the coaching staff we have, it's a pretty detailed system. But there's a reason why Canada has won a lot. The complete buy-in from every player, the attitude everyone has coming in, it's very light and confident but it's also businesslike at the same time. We're going out and winning this game and we don't care how we do it. We don't care what happens, who scores, who doesn't. Guys are blocking shots, guys are back-checking.
"You want to be a guy who's doing everything right, and that's something every guy here is willing to do.''
Translation: Team Canada isn't here to entertain you. It's here to win, baby, win.
I'd like to be naïve and argue that perhaps there's room for both -- high-octane hockey like the kids are playing, mixed in with Team Canada's surgical brilliance -- but I think the evidence in the NHL nowadays suggests otherwise.
The latter always wins out.
Unless, of course, the kids do get to play in the semifinals and produce a Saturday night to remember forever. Wouldn't that be something?