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Team Canada can’t sit idle ahead of next best-on-best tournament
Team Canada Connor McDavid
Photo credit: James Lang-Imagn Images
Zach Laing
Feb 22, 2026, 15:00 ESTUpdated: Feb 22, 2026, 14:42 EST
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It’s easy to sit here right now and say, “What could’ve been?” for a Canadian team stacked with offensive talent, but not enough when it mattered most.
After all, that was the difference between a win and a loss on Sunday in the 2026 Olympic gold medal game between the two countries that straddle the 49th parallel.
Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini’s missed breakaways. Devon Toews got stopped by Connor Hellebuyck’s save of the century. Nathan MacKinnon stared at a yawning cage and hit the outside of the post. Canada had a failed five-on-three power play and an additional minute of man-advantage late in the third period. They outshot the U.S. 42-28, to boot.
Ultimately, it was Connor Hellebuyck in the American crease who nullified all these chances, beyond a perfectly placed Cale Makar shot to tie the game last in the second period, as Jack Hughes got the golden goal.
No matter how you cut it, an Olympics that was 12 years in the making didn’t disappoint. The best-on-best hockey was tremendous, and last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off, where Canada got the bounce, was a great appetizer. But we’re onto the full entrée now.
We’ll get two more World Cups of Hockey in 2028 and 2032. We’ll get the Olympics in 2030 in the French Alps, and hopefully more every four years after that. And if Canada wants to reclaim Olympic glory, or that in the World Cup, they’re going to have to learn from their experience over the last 24 odd-months.
It all comes back to the 4 Nations tournament.
Canada iced an undeniably great team and one that was good enough to go 2-1 in the round-robin and win the gold medal game. They got it done, but it wasn’t particularly easy, given that it was a one-goal game won in overtime. There were flaws with the roster.
The forward group was top-heavy, and beyond MacKinnon and McDavid, who had four and three goals each, the only others to score one were Sidney Crosby, Mitch Marner, Brayden Point, Sam Bennett, Brad Marchand and Mark Stone. The games were largely tight, and 3.25 goals per game almost wasn’t enough.
The blue line struggled, as the likes of Devon Toews, Travis Sanheim, Colton Parayko and Drew Doughty often looked out of place. Their largest issue came in trying to move the puck, but there were some head-scratching defensive lapses.
Goaltending was a question, too, after Jordan Binnington had his struggles, but a .939 save percentage in the gold medal game seemed to quell some of those concerns.
Macklin Celebrini, Bo Horvat, Nick Suzuki, Tom Wilson, Darcy Kuemper, and Logan Thompson entered the mix.
Travis Konecny, Adin Hill, and Sam Montembeault exited the mix, while Anthony Cirelli and Brayden Point missed the Olympics with injury.
The question of “were the changes enough” will be one asked plenty over the next two years, but the general sentiment was more along the lines of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But nobody was asking to fix what evidently became a winning formula.
Rather, the fact that Canada’s management, led by general manager Doug Armstrong, his assistants Julien BriseBois, Jim Nill and Don Sweeney, and director of player personnel Kyle Dubas, felt so comfortable with the group they brought, especially on the blue line, is concerning.
Now, let’s be clear: Canada’s loss isn’t one that results in summit meetings and a complete overhaul of the system or the roster. It is, however, proof that even what’s believed to be a winning formula one year may not be the same 12 months later.
Would the addition of Connor Bedard, Zach Hyman, Matthew Schaefer, Evan Bouchard, or Jakob Chychrun to the Canadian roster have been enough to put them over the top? We’ll never know, but there’s an argument to be made.
Bedard, for example, is an elite offensive talent with one of the best pure shots in the game. Could he have found a way to bear down in the gold medal game to be the difference maker?
Could’ve Hyman, known for his knack around the net, have tipped a game-defining shot home or shovelled in a loose puck like he’s done so many times in Edmonton?
What about Schaefer and Chychrun’s strong skating and ability to carry the puck on their sticks out of the defensive zone? Would that have led to fewer muffin passes from Doughty or Toews and potentially greater offensive zone chances?
On Canada’s five-on-three, could a Bouch bomb from the point have flown past Hellebuyck?
These are among the many questions Team Canada’s brass will have to figure out. Because what’s clear is that Team Canada can’t sit idle ahead of the next best-on-best tournament.
Oilersnation wants to hear from you, the reader, in our new weekly “Letters to the Editor” segment. Letters can be emailed to Oilersnation’s managing editor Zach Laing (zach.laing@bettercollective.com), titled “Letters to the Editor.” Please include a letter up to 200 words, including your name, place of residence (city, town, province, or state). Your letters may be edited for length and/or clarity. Letters must be submitted by 6 PM MT Saturday night to be considered for feature on Sunday mornings.
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s managing editor, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the Daily Faceoff DFS Hockey Report. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.

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