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“I think it gave me a lot of confidence,” he said. “I thought it was great. I wanted to be on that team — and unfortunately there were some injuries — but to get there and contribute in some way was huge. I thought it brought some confidence into the season.”

O’Reilly, of course, is not alone. The top-eight scorers in the NHL this season all played at the World Cup. But Sidney Crosby, who is second in scoring, missed some time with a concussion, which was essentially a chance to rest his body. And while Connor McDavid, Patrick Kane and Evgeni Malkin were leaned on for their respective World Cup teams, neither was charged with playing the kind of two-way checking game as Kopitar, Bergeron or Toews.

It might not be a coincidence that all three have won the Frank J. Selke Trophy winner as the league’s top defensive forward. The minutes they log are not easy. They all play a 200-foot game in which they often work harder without the puck than they do with it.

Photo by Billy Hurst / FR171248 AP

That kind of grind takes its toll. O’Reilly, who finished sixth in Selke voting three years ago, understands that better than most.

Photo by Mark J. Terrill / AP

“All those guys, besides scoring, the things they bring to the game are huge,” said O’Reilly. “I think watching the World Cup, especially with Kopitar and the minutes he was playing and how effective he was, it was definitely something. He had a hard tournament compared to a lot of guys. It’s not an easy night.”

Kopitar, who was the captain of Team Europe, played 22 minutes and 45 seconds in Game 1 of the World Cup final against Canada and then logged 23 minutes and 39 seconds in Game 2. By the end of the tournament, he had averaged nearly 23 minutes in each of the six games, not including the three exhibition games. And that was while matching up against Crosby and the other team’s top centres.