The Athletic Hockey Show - USA and Canada on gold medal collision course: Men’s Olympic semifinals recap | Instant Reaction

Episode Date: February 21, 2026

The matchup the hockey world has been waiting 12 years for is finally set, as the United States and Canada will officially play for Olympic gold on Sunday in Milan. Jesse Granger and James Mirtle give their instant reaction following the Men's Olympic hockey semifinals and look ahead to the gold medal match, as well as the Slovakia-Finland bronze medal game slated for Saturday afternoon.This episode was recorded live at 6:00pm ET on February 20, 2026.Hosts: Jesse Granger and James MirtleExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris FlanneryWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Athletic Hockey Show. We've got another live edition of the show today. We just finished watching the United States dominate their semi-final Olympic matchup against Slovakia. Canada took care of business. It was a little closer earlier this morning, setting up the gold medal game 12 years in the making. I'm joined by James Myrtle in Toronto. Man, have these hockey games been fun?

I'll start by asking you, do you feel the same way as me in that as much as I'm enjoying this, I feel almost disappointed like I can't believe we've been robbed of this Olympic drama and these players playing for their countries for as long as we have. Hey, Jesse. Yeah, I mean, that's what I was going to say too, as you say that, it's been 12 years. And it's, I was thinking even, you know, for someone like yourself, like, what's the first best on best tournament you remember watching? Like, you know, you haven't even been able to see that many of these.

I was thinking of like the 96 World Cup that the U.S. won as, you know, and we've definitely, I remember sitting on the couch with my dad, went in Nagano in 98. It was the middle of the night. It was like two or three in the morning or whatever, and that Canada lost that game into the checks. And it's been such a long time coming. And the great thing is we get the matchup that everyone wanted. And it should be a great game and one that everyone's going to be talking about for a long time. And the good news is that there's going to be an international calendar now where we're going to get a World Cup,

every four years. We're getting at Olympics every four years and hopefully cross her fingers. It stays that way for good going forward now. We don't have any of this goofy infighting that causes us not to have these tournaments. Right. And as much fun as these almost upsets have been, and as an American fan, I can say, I've been a little disappointed in Canada's ability to come back. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, this is the game we all wanted. And this is the game that hockey, like this, I was kind of talking about it earlier. This is so great for the sport of hockey. People that aren't huge hockey fans are watching this. And there isn't a matchup that works better for hockey that will put it on a bigger stage that will get more eyes on it than the

two powerhouses, the U.S. and Canada, the teams we've, like I said, we've been waiting for years for these teams to play and we're going to get to see them play on the biggest stage. Well, could you imagine if the checks or the Finns would have knocked Canada off, the air that would have kind of come out of the tournament? I feel like it, I, I feel like it. I mean, maybe this isn't fair to the other teams, but I feel like it would have been a bit of a cakewalk for the U.S. I mean, maybe there would have been some tests there against Finland or whatever.

But, I mean, it had the potential to be a hugely disappointing tournament. And we've seen that. I remember return there was all this hype about, you know, Canada and the U.S. Are they going to meet in 2006 in the final? And then it ended up being Sweden, Finland. And, you know, the diehard hockey people like you and I were watching that gold medal final. But the casual fans you're talking about the, you know, like there's a, Skip Bayless is talking about hockey on social media.

Like it's really breaching the zeitgeist now with this game on Sunday. I guess maybe one of the only things that's going to hurt it is the time that the game is on, right? It's going to be so early for you in the morning. And I'm sure they're going to lose some viewers with that being the case. Yeah, I've been waking up at 3 a.m. for the games all week. It's the gold medal game's not quite that early. You should just stay up. You don't have kids.

I would just stay up and watch that. You're kind of one or the other when you have it like that. 3 a.m. is pretty close. I will say someone was complaining about the time for the gold medal game last night in our locker room before we played beer league. And I said 5 a.m. is tough, but at least 5 a.m. feels like you're waking up early in the morning. 3 a.m. feels like it's the middle of the night. It doesn't feel like I'm waking up early. It just feels like it's the middle of the night and I'm up. I have been staying up after those. It's going to bed a little earlier than normal.

But yeah, 5 a.m. It is odd. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that it's the last day of the Olympics and like the closing ceremony and all that because wouldn't it? I think they're playing it at like noon local time. Why not just push that back to a 7 p.m. local time and that way North America can watch it at a reasonable time. It's it is a little bit odd. It's six hours ahead from here. So that would be 2 p.m. local and the closing ceremonies are at I believe 8.30 in in Milan. So they're trying to get the game even if there's a full. I I mean, it's continuous overtime, right? But with three on three, it's probably not going to be that long.

There's no shootout in the gold medal game, thankfully. But let's say they have, you know, 10, 15 minutes overtime. Then you have the medal ceremony and everything. Like, they don't, they want that game and all of that to be over by the time the closing ceremony starts. So I think that that's part of the rationale. But it's going to hurt the TV audience for sure. I mean, again, like obviously you and I are going to be up.

And hopefully it gets some people to wake up early to see that game because it's going to be a really special moment. For sure. Yeah. I mean, these, it's so amazing watching. just the player's faces on the ice after the games. Like these guys, they play huge games in the NHL all the time. Like the stakes are as high as they can get, but it seems like these stakes are a bit higher

for everyone, especially because of the 12 year gap. Like, that's part of it, too, is like, it sucks that we didn't get to see it for 12 years. But if we had been doing this every four years, it wouldn't feel as special as it does because we had to wait so long. Yeah, I mean, and there's guys like McKinnon and McDavid and Matthews. And, I mean, go down the list that have never played in an event like this before. been waiting for this for years. And, you know, it was a big part of like the CBA negotiations with

the NHL and the PA is that the players were pushing really hard that they had to go back to the Olympics. And so, you know, I know McDavid, someone that's been, you don't hear him come out really vocally critical of much. And this was one of the issues that he came out and said, we need to be there. And you can tell how much it means to him, just watching him on the ice. I mean, McDavid is playing at probably another level or at the very least he's playing at the level he was in the Stanley Cup final. And it's amazing how good the best players look, even in this best on best field. Like McDavid looks faster than even the fastest players in the world out there. So it's, Sunday is going to be incredible. And I, you know, cross my fingers that cross our fingers that

everybody's healthy and everyone's going to be there. I know it looked like Tage Thompson potentially was hurt. We don't know what Sydney Crosby, Josh Morris. He's out for Canada. Hopefully no one else goes down between now and Sunday because it would be great to see everyone at full strength of this game. For sure. And you mentioned it. Let's get to those. games that we watch today, we'll start with the U.S. game. It wasn't quite as entertaining. They finally got off to a good start. This is a team that has really struggled out of the gates in pretty much every game of this entire tournament. They've ended up being able to find their game in time to win comfortably most of the time. Obviously, the one against Sweden was close.

But today they pull away from Slovakia. They end up winning six to two, even the two goals that Slovakia scored. It was when the game was pretty much out of reach and over at that point. What's your biggest takeaway from today's semifinal for the U.S.? To me, it shows that if you give them space, this team is dangerous, but I don't expect the, I expect the gold medal game to be so tight checking, much more like what we saw from Finland and Canada earlier in the day. This Slovakia game, kind of a throwaway for me. Yeah, I think that that's right.

Yeah, and they were overmatched. And you look at Slovakia's roster coming in, and it's just like, what do they have, five guys in the NHL? and even that, you're talking about really young players. And, you know, Slavkovsky and Nemich, they acquitted themselves really well. And I mean, you might have been one of the only people on staff that knew the goalie. I mean, he's probably in your ranking somewhere. Halavad?

Halibai. Is that right? Yeah, Halavai. Yeah, he's struggled in the HL to this season, to the point where he got sent down to the ECHL at one point. I thought he was great in that game. And we were kind of messaging during the game. At first, I see his reaction. when he's going off the ice and like I'm I'm so used to like NHL like once you're eliminated it's over I forget that there's even a bronze medal game tomorrow I'm like why not just let that guy play this game out I mean come on like he's your best goalie like he's carried you to this point then I remembered okay they do have a bronze medal game that that is pretty meaningful for that team I said to you like bronze for them is their gold really like if they came to this tournament and they were going to get like that's going to be a national celebration if they get a bronze medal there so and they did beat Finland during the round robin so you know

Save the kid and rest them and cross your fingers that. I mean, they're back on the ice and less than 24 hours, right? And that's going to be a really tough game. And for Finland, I mean, Finland always plays hard in those bronze medal games, too. I think that they have, they've won four medals at Best on Best Olympics with the NHL there, four medals in the five years. And is it two silvers and two bronze? I mean, they've won more medals than any other country.

So Finland's going to really want to win that game, too. And I think that a bronze medal game will be entertaining if, you know, people want to tune that one in tomorrow. I thought Halavai was great today. I thought he made some big saves. The U.S. just, there's so much pressure. And they just seem to be, like to me, they've looked like they've gotten better as the tournament has gone on. They look like they're finding there. Whereas like the Canadians, it just seemed like almost amazingly like right off the bat. There's just so much chemistry between Celebrini. And I mean, when you're that good, maybe that's just they don't even need chemistry. Even if there is no chemistry, they're so good that they're just going to score anyway. But to me, it looked like for the U.S., it's been more of a process of trying to find that game. And maybe it's competition level today. Maybe the Sweden game was obviously a lot closer, but they do look like they're getting a lot more comfortable as this as this tournament's gone on. Yeah. And maybe Canada is getting a little bit worse or, or I mean, the Czechs came out and they played so well in that quarterfinal game that it seemed like Canada wasn't quite ready for that. And even against Finland too. I mean, I think it seemed

like Canada was trying to sort of skill their way through that game today against Finland when they really, And then when it got down to where they realized that Finland was basically packing the house in front of the net and they needed to cycle it back to the point and just generate. And that's where then when they started to get all of those shots and it became just an avalanche. I mean, at one point I had the shots. I think it was 23 to 6 from the first period until late in the third. They were just completely dominant. So Canada found their game. And I think that that's probably the style they're going to have to play against the U.S. to win.

But I'm expecting the gold medal game to look a lot different than both of these games did. and probably tight checking, probably low margins, you know, and I think goaltending could potentially be a big factor. You know, both the goaltenders, Bennington and Hellebuck have been pretty good in this tournament, but probably haven't been tested as much as they could be in the gold medal game. And I mean, you're the goalie guy, so I don't know what you're seeing. Binnington, as someone watching the Canadian side still makes me a little bit nervous, just with the season that he's had, some of the rebounds that he's kicking out, sliding around in the net. Like you could see in the game against Finland, he was sometimes going way out of the net.

That would be one concern for me that the U.S. could potentially take advantage of there. And Hullobox interesting because, I mean, we know what he's been in the NHL in the regular season. But he has this reputation and he just hasn't really delivered in a huge big game moment that I can recall. Certainly not in the NHL playoffs. So he's got something to prove here too. So I think the goaltending matchups can be fascinating there. For sure. Anyone who's been listening to our live breakdowns all week has probably heard this from me before.

But yes, Bittington, I'm concerned with Bittington, not to the point where he's been bad, but this. And I was fighting people on Twitter with this all day yesterday or two days ago when he ends up making the big save at the end and everyone thinks that that proves it wrong. But this is what I've seen from Jordan Bittington. The same goalie I've seen in St. Louis all year. And the only difference is now he's got six elite defensemen in front of him that make a goal. his life a lot easier. To me, he looks like he's not reading the play as well as he typically does. It just looks like he's, he's guessing a little bit. It looks like he's, and when he guesses, he's coming way out of his net, like you said. And I think he's, he's always been an aggressive

goalie in terms of like the depth he plays at, but he's playing a few more inches out. And like, that may not sound like a lot, but it is a lot. And when there's a rebound, it puts you in a bad position. And you look at the numbers for St. Louis this year. And like they've, I think they've allowed the seventh fewest rebound shots of any team in the league, but the third most rebound goals. And it makes sense. Like it matches what I'm seeing on the ice of a goalie who is maybe he's compensating a little bit because he doesn't feel great. He's not like he's just not feeling it. He's not in his groove. So pucks are beating him. So in order to kind of compensate for that, he's like, okay, I'm going to take a couple more inches of depth here. I'm going to be a little more aggressive

and hopefully more pucks will hit me. And that's fine. And it works except for those second chance opportunities, the further you get out, the more out of position you are for a second chance. And it's going to be, we've seen that in this tournament. Rarely has it cost Canada because their defense has been so good at getting to those pucks before the opposition do. But you look at the way the U.S. is built. And a lot of guys that like to go to the front of the net and crash, both the kachucks, Eichel gets their Matthews to score a ton of goals from right around that same area.

So it's a super interesting stylistic matchup. I still think Canada, player for player, skill for skill. is clearly the better team. But I do think that the cracks in their armor that you're trying to find in this Canadian team, I think this American team might be specifically built to take advantage of some of those. And Jordan Biddington is one of them. Now, having said all that, Jordan Biddington is also super athletic and has a knack for coming up with huge saves and big moments.

So while I sit here and say, I don't think he's fully fixed his game. When I watch him, I think he's still dealing with the same things he has in St. Louis. I don't think he's fixed his game. But also, if the game goes to overtime and there's a breakaway for the United States, Jordan Baintington, I'm going to bet on him making that save because it's what he does. Yeah, he's got the kind of ice in his veins you can see where there's these moments and you're concerned, but then that's when he makes the save. And that's kind of what happened at Four Nations too, right? Where he wasn't always airtight in the, you know, middle of the first period or whatever. My concern would be, though, it just takes one or two mistakes, I think is going to separate who wins this game on Sunday.

I mean, it's, I think that Canada is the better team, but the margins are so close, you know, and I, I look at the way that I think the U.S.'s blue line looks better than Canada's right now. I mean, McCar is obviously a huge difference maker. He's going to play 32, 33 minutes in Sunday. And that's one of the equalizers for Canada. But without Joss Morrissey, they don't really have the puck that, that I think that the U.S. has. You know, you look at the way Sanderson skates and the way that Hughes moves the puck and Werenzky, and it's almost like on every pairing, they've got a guy that's really dynamic and that can make. things happen. The Canada went more for some of the prevent defense. You know, this can be Pareko and Sanheim and, you know, they bring Drew Dowdy for his experience. And you look at the numbers from the tournament and they're not really generating anything offensively. And so a lot of it rests with with McCar, a little bit from Theodore, which we saw against Finland today. You know, so it's, that's going to be really interesting to see if the U.S. has been building a better blue line every year, I would say over the last five, 10 years, there are more Americans playing D in the NHL than there have ever been.

I think they're up to something like 30% of the NHL's defensemen are coming from the U.S. now, which is incredibly high compared to where it was, you know, let's say 20 years ago. They're catching Canada, I think, on the blue line. They've already caught Canada in goal and passed them, and they're getting close on defense. So, I mean, I think those are going to be their strengths. And the forward group, I mean, where they're going to struggle to match Canada is right at the top of the lineup. I mean, with McDavid playing the way he is, Celebrini playing the way he is, and McKinnon

playing. They're just, they're playing like players that are possessed. And I don't know that the top end of the forward group or the U.S. is going to be able to match that. So it's going to be super interesting stylistically, whether, let me ask you this. Like, do you think this game is going to be kind of like a street fight and there's going to be a lot of physicality and that that's going to define the game? Or you think it's going to come down to some skill plays between the best players? My gut is street fight. But because it's the Olympics and we've seen these games like they're not all being called the same. We're seeing some games where they let a lot go. We're seeing some games where they're calling everything. I tend to think that in the gold medal with these two teams that

are all NHL players, they're probably going to let them play a little more physically. But if you, if you take a penalty, I mean, these two power plays are unstoppable. Like the US power play is amazing. Canada's power play is probably even better. You cannot afford to take stupid penalties in this gold medal game or you will lose your country, a gold medal. So part of me wonders if the fact that it's not four nations, it's not the NHL, like totally NHL rules that we, we are playing under I-IHF rules that are a little more, they like to call penalties. Like I remember talking to Mark Stone before he left for Milan. And I was like, hey, Mark, I'm writing a story on like the difference in the rules.

And I'm noticing that the rules aren't all that different. The IHF has kind of adopted a lot of NHL's rules. Like, you've played in World Championships. What's different in your eyes? And he's like, honestly, they just call more penalties. Like he's like, I don't think the penalties themselves are worded any differently. They just call more. And I wonder if that will destroy.

swayed the players from making this a knockdown, dragout fight because they're so worried about putting either of these power plays on the ice. Do we know who the officials are for the gold medal game? I wonder if they're going to put two NHL officials there or what they've been doing is they've been splitting it, right, with an NHL official and a European, because seven of their refs are from the NHL and seven of them are from the European leagues. And maybe that's what they do again. I haven't really liked the officiating in the Olympics, to be honest. I mean, there's been a lot of bad calls. The games today, I think, were okay. I know Tamos-Lani didn't like the high stick on McKinnon late in the game.

I mean, that's obviously a heartbreaker for Finland that it happened like that. But that's a penalty. I mean, that would have been called an NHL playoff game if it happened. You know, and I know there's some controversy, McKinnon snaps his head back and everything. But you've seen a lot of him in the Western Conference. That's kind of, that's the competitor that McKinnon is, right?

Like they're not going to call an embellishment on Nathan McKinnon with two minutes left in that game. No, I also think that everyone who's like so upset at his facial movement when he gets hit in the face with a hockey stick. I think a lot of those people probably haven't been hit in the face with a hockey stick. It hurts. I know. There's a reason why I wear a full cage when I play. I don't want to get hit with those composite sticks. It's like being hit with like a brick or something. It's not, you know, it's not a lot of fun. So maybe I can't. He's, he's, he's a big

personality, right? Like he's like, he reacts that way to everything happening on the ice. Not just being hit the face with a stick. Yeah. And like just your natural reaction when something hits you in the face as to like immediately like it's not necessarily selling the call. I think he might have sold it, but I also think people are overblowing that a little bit. The last thing I want to get to preview in this gold medal game, and you mentioned the top end of Canada's forwards. They've been, like they started off with Tom Wilson up on that top line. They've started to move Wilson down to that kind of line with Marshand and Bennett. And they've been playing the three studs, Celebrini, McKinnon and, sorry, and McDavid all together. The U.S. obviously has a lot of

more depth than any team they've played to this point. Do you expect Canada to just roll with that top heavy line? Or do you think that they might try to go with a more balanced approach against a U.S. team that's maybe the depth can go in the U.S.'s favor if Canada does stack that top line? It seems like what John Cooper's doing is he's starting with Wilson there and then when he needs a goal or he's not liking the way that things are looking, then he switches it up. But what I would say is that the Marshaun, Bennett and Wilson line played really well in this game. And they were a big part of the win over Finland. So, and I think with the physicality being part of it, I guess the only caveat is that he might want Wilson on that line to start the game just to see what kind of a game it is.

And then if it is the street fight, he doesn't have all of his finesse guys out there, you know, getting mixed up in in some skirmish with the Kachuk brothers. So he may want to have Wilson up on that line just to be a little bit of a policeman and get involved in that stuff. And he doesn't want Nathan McKinnon getting in fights the way he was against France, you know, and he wants him on the power play scoring goals when one of the Kachucks takes a penalty that they shouldn't take. So I suspect you'll see Wilson start on that line, and then as soon as Cooper wants to, he can, and has the feel of the game, he'll switch it up because that's been kind of a cheat code for Canada. They put those three players together.

I mean, McKinnon's probably going to win the heart this year. McDavid, obviously, obviously, is the class of the league as the best player in the league. Celebrini's coming fast. I mean, he's at least in the top 10. So you've got three of the 10 or maybe even three of the five best forwards in the league all playing on the same line. They've been unstoppable. You know, and Celebrini's numbers are incredible.

So McDavid now has more points in a best-on-best NHL Olympics than anyone has ever had. Celebrini is two behind him. If Celebrina gets one more point, he will tie for second ever for a player in NHL Olympics with 11 points. And he's 19. You know, the record for a teenager was of Gennie Malkin back in the, I think that probably would have been Turin in 2006. And I think he had six points. Zellebrini's got 11 already, or 10 already. I mean, it's absolutely incredible what he's been doing.

The flip side of that, though, is that Canada hasn't gotten a lot from his depth players. That's what everyone was talking about in the game against the checks, is that where are these other guys? And then Suzuki gets the goal. Marner gets the goal in overtime. Finally, they got some secondary scoring. But they have a lot of guys that have no goals. or have only one point. Hegel, Jarvis, I'm trying to think who scored today and who didn't.

But, you know, they had a, coming into this game or midway through the Finland game, they had five or six their forwards with zero or one point. And that's probably not going to get it done against the U.S. And I don't know how you feel about the U.S. is forward depth, but Canada should have some advantage on the third and fourth line. It just hasn't shown up in this tournament yet. Yeah, I think the U.S. has been getting more contributions from like different places. Jack Hughes has been awesome.

Brock Nelson was great early in the tournament. We haven't seen them as much in the knockout stage. And then like the Eichol Kachucks line has been basically great throughout. A little more, but I agree with you, just player for player, Canada's, the forward depth is much better. But just maybe some of those guys haven't shown up as much in this tournament. All right, before we get out of here, let's do some picks. Who you got in the bronze medal game? Bronze medal.

I'm going to say Finland pulls it out. I mean, Slovakia just doesn't have the NHL talent. So we'll see. It's always nice to have upsets. But the Finns deserve it. They've had a pretty good tournament. I mean, they lost the one game to start, and then they've been excellent since then. So, you know, like I said, they've won more medals in NHL Olympics than anybody.

So I'm going to pick them. I'll take Slovakia just in the, like, motivational. I think it means more for them. So I'll take them just. It will mean everything to them. Yeah. Like I said, it'll be a national holiday there if they win the bronze. So, which I don't know if you can say about that many places.

Right. They'll build a statue of Halavai. Let's do a gold medal game and let's do scores. I'll go first this time. I will take the United States and I'll say two one in a knockdown, dragout fight. I will go out on a limb and say Connor Hellebuck. I don't know if he's going to get the chance in the playoffs this year because the Jets don't look like they're heading anywhere near the playoffs. So he doesn't have the chance to kind of like exercise those demons of can he be the man in the big moment?

So I think he does it to, sorry, two days from now. I think he does it in the gold medal game. One goal gets by him and he gets the win and we kind of stop that narrative, at least for a little while. What do you got? All right. All right. I would just make it interesting.

I want to pick Canada. Three, two and overtime for Canada. Celebrini in the three on, it's going to be three on three overtime, which is going to be ridiculous. In Vancouver in 2010, it was four and four at least when Crosby scored the golden goal. Three on three is,

I think three on three probably favors Canada, right? Which is the way that McDavid can skate and in McCar. and, you know, I know the U.S. has some skaters, but they're built more for five-on-five hockey. So I think Canada has to feel pretty good if it does get to overtime. Totally agree, yeah, five-on-five, like the U.S. wants small area games. Like, just the less room, the better. If it goes to three-on-three, I will not feel good for the U.S. chances. I think, like you said, it favors Canada big time.

Man, I can't wait for this game. It's going to be so much fun. It's going to be 5 a.m. my time, but I'm sure people are going to be having beers for breakfast that day. It's almost like watching, it reminds me of like watching the World Cup of soccer. So it should be a lot of fun. Thanks for joining and listening everybody today. Thanks, James, for joining me and talking this through. We will be live once again tomorrow, right after the bronze medal game between Finland and Slovakia. And of course, we're going to have full gold medal and Olympic tournament recap Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern time. We'll be on here as soon as the gold medal

game ends.