The Athletic Hockey Show - USA grabs gold on Jack Hughes’ OT tally: Men’s Olympic recap

Episode Date: February 22, 2026

Team USA struck gold for the third time in Men’s Olympic hockey history on Sunday, triumphing over Canada on the strength of a Jack Hughes winner less than two minutes into overtime. The guys break down all the action from an excellent gold medal game, and recap the first Olympic hockey tournament to feature NHL players in the last 12 years, including thoughts on the tournament MVP vote, players who changed opinions with their play, and what this all means for the future of best-on-best hockey.Hosts: Max Bultman, Sean Gentille, and Jesse GrangerWith: Mark LazerusExecutive 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, Max Boldman here alongside Jesse Granger and Sean Gentilly for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show. The 2026 Winter Olympics are over. Mark Lazarus is going to join us shortly from Milan, but the three of us back here in the United States, which is now the proud owner of both ice hockey gold medals from the 26 games, all-timer of a gold medal game. We got overtime. We got just about everything.

think everyone wanted. The fact that it was settled in three on three, we will get to that. We will get to a lot of things. But I think we got to start, Sean, with the defining image from this game, bloody-mouthed, tooth-chipped Jack Hughes, scoring the golden goal at the Olympics. Yeah, with what's left of his front teeth. I like to offer condolences to my mother, who I think has fallen in love with both Hughes boys over the last two weeks. I think she wants to adopt, adopt both of them. So yeah, Ellen, Ellen has some competition there. She's going to be so upset that Jack's beautiful face has been, has been permanently mart. It's as good as it gets, man. It's one of those outcomes. And I'm sure we're going to talk about Jack and we're going to talk about it in

detail. But in totality, that sequence by him, starting with a high stick from Sam Bennett all the way through the game winning goal, that's, if you would have said that that's the way that game finished and wound up a couple days ago, I just said you were, you were full of it. Like, it's almost too good to be true, right? I mean, rewind this, Jesse. Like, it was two, three weeks ago that a lot of the discourse was Jack Hughes should have been playing through more for the devils coming into this tournament. There was still some, you know, memories of the Four Nations tournament where he hadn't

been as impactful as we've seen him be in the NHL. What a complete narrative, and this will be a theme today, a complete narrative reversal on Jack Hughes, who goes absolute warrior mode and delivers a gold medal to his country. Yeah, it just shows you maybe we shouldn't overreact so much to like a two game sample or three game sample, whatever the Four Nations was, because it was like, well, Hughes just isn't built for these types of games. And then he comes in here and he's just awesome from start to finish. That fourth line that he started on with Brock Nelson was the best line right out of the gates for the U.S. And then he obviously gets moved up the lineup and just making plays throughout the game. And I was kind of joking about it before. It's easy for me to say, I don't have to get like dental work done on my teeth.

But thank God he got his teeth knocked out because those photos could not be better. We're talking a hundred years from now, those photos will still be amazing. First gold medal in 46 years, that moment is going to be like in every hockey fan's mind. And the fact that he doesn't have those teeth in those photos makes them so much better. He's talking to Catherine Tappen immediately after that. the game ended, right? Like, she has him in a, in a side room off, off the ice. And he's learning how to talk without teeth.

Like, he's whistling. You can hear him whistling as he's talking. I'm like, this is, this is fake. This is, this is like, write a movie about a gold medal hockey game. And that's the kind of thing that would happen. And we watch it play out for real. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean, you talk about the sequence, right?

So, US, he draws a four minute penalty from the Sam Bennett high stick. USA does nothing with it. and he actually takes a high-sticking penalty that negates the last 40, I think it was 49 seconds of it at the end. I still think that that was a really crucial four-minute power play, partly because Canada had so much momentum after tying the game, really leading up to tying the game. Ever since they're five-on-three, Canada controlled the play in this game.

And I think even just four minutes, three minutes and change of the U.S. staving that off and getting this to overtime, a massive factor in the outcome of this game, Jesse. couldn't agree more. And not only does it like give you four minutes where you're not defending, but it lets Connor Hela Bucks legs get some blood flag flowing through him because I mean, Canada had the puck in their zone for what felt like the entire second period and the first 10 minutes of the third period. And like Hela Buc's a big guy. I can imagine his legs were on fire trying to go back and forth as this Canadian team just slings the puck across the zone. So couldn't agree more even even without getting the goal, even with kind of negating the last half of that power play,

a massive, massive moment in the game for the U.S. to kind of just take a breath and regroup. And just to go back to the Jack Hughes of it all, too. Mark Lazarus recorded a video saying as much. So this isn't a unique point, but I think a lot of people felt this way, including me, me and McIndoo talked about it after the bronze medal game yesterday. The biggest thing for me to come out of that semi-final win over Slovakia, was that Jack Hughes looked like he was rolling. Yeah.

That felt, and that is such a variable, not just relative to the Four Nations tournament, but relative to even the start of this one. Like, we can talk about Quinn being in the mix because he wasn't a Four Nations. We can talk about a player like Tage Thompson being in the roster because he wasn't at Four Nations. I think we need to include Jack's uptick and performance

within that discussion as well, because when you have a player that skilled, who should be getting top six minutes at minimum on any team he's on with anybody, that's a huge, huge variable. And it's like it's adding a true stud to the mix, which they didn't get in the Four Nations tournament for one reason or another.

So the fact that they came into this game with him rolling with some amount of confidence that he found, he obviously was sick against Slovakia, we got another highlight goal from him there. I mean, that couldn't be overstated. It felt important in the moment as we were watching it. And then to have it play out the way that it did on such a wild scale is even still crazy to see.

You're right. Just in the same way that you can make the case of like, hey, no Tage Thompson to having Tage Thompson. Going from Jack Hughes is a little bit of a question mark to Jack Hughes was their best offensive player at this tournament. It's either him or his brother, right? And then he was a massive difference maker. In the knockout round games, too, right? This was not just in prelims and qualifiers and in, you know, play.

it was in the biggest games Jack Hughes kept showing up and including the final goal. I mean, let's talk about the final goal because it's an interesting one, Sean. It does not come against lightweight competition. They are all of the heavyweights for Team Canada on the ice. I mean, Zach Wrenski puts a big body blow into Nathan McKinner at the end of it to set it up. I went back and watched that whole sequence a couple times, like after the celebrations were done. And after we watched Nathan McKinnon, you know, get his stuffed animal and look at it. at like someone just handed him, you know, a ticking time bomb, right?

I went back and watched all of it, and the sequence is still, it's still, it's mind boggling to me. Like, you have McKinnon going one on three for the, at least the second time during overtime alone, skates directly in the teeth of three guys, gets rerouted by guess who, Jack Hughes, and kind of forces them into basically turning the puck over in front of the net. It was just like a weird, the puck went off his stick and started the movement back in the, direction. That's point one. So you have a, you have a McDavid mistake to kick things off. Next up, Kill McCar mistake, terrible pinch, bad timing, executed poorly, puck goes even goes even further down the ice, obviously, ends up on, on Werenski's stick. By that point, McKinnon is gassed,

even though he's, you know, he's back and doing his best in his defensive zone. Werensky completely bodies him and puts a perfect in stride pass to Jack for the way. It's, it's, it's, it's, It's incredible. It would have been incredible if it was anybody, like, if it was anybody on the ice for Canada engaging in that sort of stuff. The fact that it was McDavid and then McCar and then McKinnon in succession like that, like huge mistakes and or misplays led directly to the goal. Like, it still blows my mind.

Those guys blew it. That's just those are, that's the facts are around that sequence, man. The three best players on the planet potentially, each made, you know, consecutive errors in very critical moments to lead directly to that chance. I still can't believe it. Well, speaking of disbelief, let's bring in now from Milan, Mark Lazarus. Laz, do we have you with us?

You have me. And I just want to say, all those times you made fun of me from my Jack Hughes love for saying he could be one of the best players in the world, Bill Guerin is not the one vindicated here by this team. It's me. you can pick up your gold medal at will call I was starting to lose faith man like we like we especially

like me and Dom do those player tiers every year and I feel like I was starting to waver on Jack's placement in the larger scheme of things right like I you know this is the most vindication we're ever going to get but I really do think I think he unlocked a new level like I don't think I've seen Jack Hughes play

as complete against game as I saw in the last three games, like in this knockout round. And he's excellent. Like he's always been a dominant offensive player, dominant NHL player, highly skilled, controls the pace, all of those things, but just the totality of him last. Like I thought it was the best I've ever seen him. Yeah, I mean, like Sean kind of outlined. I mean, he won two puck battles on routes to scoring that hole. That's not in the defensive zone. That's not a thing we expect to see it from him. But that's when you get to this moment, big players step up. It was really fun listening to Quinn Hughes in the mix zone after the game, kind of shove it back.

in everyone's faces. He's like, you know, all these reporters, they've never had a rehab and injury before, let alone two in a row. You don't understand. He's only 24. And I'm sitting there nod in my head. Like, yep, I agree. You're making fun of reporters. I agree. Yeah, you're like those losers, media dorks don't know what they're talking about. That's right. It was interesting after the game. Like, all of a sudden everyone was cursing a lot. Like, everything is just F bombs and everything was asked this and F that and these guys got a lot looser all of a sudden.

Once they got that weight off their shoulders. got a Hall of Fame or lip read from Vince Trocheck on the ice, by the way, during the, during the medal ceremony. I'll leave people to find out. Oh, yeah. It's a good one. It's a good one. We know his post game plans. He's got plans. Las, what was the energy like in the arena? On TV, it looked like a huge Canada crowd. Like, talk me through the sequence of overtimes, the energy, all of these things. It was. It was interesting because like the Americans have shown up for this tournament. And the Canadians were nowhere to be found in the prelim rounds. But it seems like the Canadians just bought all the metal round games because they assumed they would be in them. It was like, I don't

know, 75, 25, 25 Canada, maybe more today. The atmosphere was, I mean, this was one of the coolest games I've ever been to. It was, I wasn't writing like the buzzer story, Russo and Pierre where I was able to sit there and just watch the game and like observe things and take notes. It was tense. It was uneasy. And, you know, the whole time, it felt like inevitable that Canada was going to win. They were the better team for those last 40 minutes. I just posted my column. Everyone go read it after you're done listening to us. It was like the US had no business winning that game. None. It was pretty much, and I asked Vincent Trocheck that. I go like, how do you explain this?

He just goes, Connor Hellibuck. That's it. That's an answer. And, you know, that's what happens sometimes is you just have great players step up and have great moments. But the energy was tense. It was loud. The place was shaking. You know, this building, I don't really trust this building. I feel like it might collapse tomorrow. And I thought it might collapse today during that third period. It was every time the puck was on Macklin-Cellibini's stick and he somehow missed the net, like the place was going to explode. I want to push back with no business winning this game, but you mentioned Connor Hellibook.

I got to let Jesse pick a bone with you first. Then we're going to circle back to what I want to say. Oh, that's right. So, Mark, who voted on the MVP? We had to vote. Everyone voted. Anyone who wanted to vote. We had to vote at the first intermission.

And at that point, I don't even know who. I'm assuming it was Connor McDavid, right? Yes. Everybody, he was, he was by far the MVP of this tournament coming into this game. If they let us vote, like, if they let us vote, like, well, I mean, you could say your ice Slavkovsky was more valuable to his team than anybody else.

It's like, there's other guys you could say. After this game, it's obviously Connor Hellebuck. This is the flaw in making us vote for this after the first period of the gold medal game. No, it definitely takes an hour and a half to count votes for sure from how many people with this, for sure. I shouldn't admit this because I don't think they published these things. I didn't even have Connor Hellebuck. as the goalie of the tournament. I had Leonardo

Janoni. Two shotouts find a worst team at the same save percentage as Hellebuck. Murder God to you. Connor Hellebuck was not really challenged for most of this tournament. I think he had a 9.56 coming into

the game still. Yeah, his safe percentage was 9.51 at the first. Other than the Swedish, he was not challenged. He did not face chances like he faced today. That's fair. I will say it's ridiculous that you're voting then. And even if you, Even if they are going to make you vote then, it should be the way they have us do the

con smith voting for the cup where you can put like if this, if this, then that. Yes, conditional voting because I think everybody would have said, I think everybody was said if USA wins, Hellebuck is the MVP, right? They basically just had a QR code that we get all signed. It was just like around the area. So anybody who had a credential basically could vote. It wasn't like they took like a blue ribbon panel here. It was anybody who wanted to vote. That was a credential member. So this wasn't, okay, so this wasn't Pierre counting slips of paper with people's name on them, like the con voting is? There was no electioneering happening this time. We're not supposed to be a con's knife.

Yeah. All right. It's still ridiculous. This ties right into what I wanted to say, because you say they had no business winning this game. I get your point. Canada dominated the run of play. And especially from, I thought, the mid-second period on, they were in total control of the puck. And the USA was just fighting to get a couple chances.

I will say, I think the game was always kind of going to. to look something like this. This was the roster construction for both teams. This was this was what they were suited to do. Canada was suited to dominate the puck to roll out the three leading MVP candidates in the NHL on a line and terrorize people. And the U.S. was built to weather it and try to be opportunistic. So I don't know that I'd say they had no business winning it. I'd say this played out kind of exactly as they seemed to see it coming when they built this roster. I think Sean's laughing at me. Maybe to a degree you're right, but the Americans for the last 35 minutes of this game,

from basically the five on three that they did a great job killing off on, they looked like the fins did in the quarter of the semi-final game. They were just desperately trying to get the puck into the neutral zone so they could catch their breath and get a change. They were flailing. They had no pushback. There was no counter-attacks. There was no transition.

There was nothing offensive at all about what the Americans doing. They were just trying to survive. and Conor Helibuck was allowing them to. So they really did have, they were badly outplayed. I think Team USA is a better team, but those three guys drive the play so well that it was lobside demand. They couldn't get out of their own end.

If you find a way to do what they did to McDavid, McKinnon, and McCar on that last shift, you deserved one. Absolutely. Before that, like I, like I, last, in the first two periods, they absolutely did. McDavid had a look. Celebrini had a look.

they gave up nothing else easy. Like Hellebuck had a relatively manageable first two periods up, really up until the five on three. So the first half of the game, he had a pretty manageable game. The five on three turned a ton of momentum. And then it was interesting. I talked to someone yesterday and we were talking about how does the USA try to approach that line, right? And I thought it would be the Ikel and the Kachucks and it started out that way. And their suggestion was what if they move Larkin up to that line to skate with those guys?

Because that's the mismatch they have against the Kachucks is that if you put McKinnon and Celebrating and McDavid, like, How can the Kachucks realistically keep up? That played out, I thought. But it didn't even work when they made that switch. They did put Larkin up to the Eichel line, and they still could not contain that line. There was so much energy, so much force of will from that line that it was, it was survive in the third period. But I thought the first, certainly the first 30 minutes, maybe the first 35 at even strength. I thought the USA played it.

They didn't give up anything easy in front of Halebuk. Yeah, but then they spent the third period just watching Macklin Celebrating magically missed the net somehow. on chance of Nathan McKinnon misses a wide open net. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

The McKinnon missing the net. We need to talk about that specifically. Yeah. That maybe was the most egregious net miss that I've ever seen in my life. I could not, because the NBC broadcast didn't show a replay of it. So you knew what happened, obviously.

But like in the run of play, we didn't actually see it. I went back and looked at it. I am astounded that he missed. That is that maybe more than the misplays on the game-winning goal is like the Rubicon moment for this game. I am still astounded that he did not bury that. He's going to be seeing that net on the inside of the island for the rest of his life. Literally the rest of his life.

Jesse, talk us through what a ridiculous save the paddle save was on Devon Taves. I mean, you can make a very really. case, it's the best save in American hockey history now. Yeah, I mean, it's the save of the tournament. It's the save of the Olympics, and it's probably the best save that Connor Hellbuck's ever made. This is a guy who has, since he was like eight years old, he told his dad, I'm going to be the big boring goalie. And he's absolutely done it to perfection his entire life. Like, he is the goalie that does not make acrobatic, spectacular looking saves, because he makes it look so easy, because he's gigantic. He's 6-6. He has impeccable positioning, and he reads the game better than anyone

that's ever played the position, in my opinion. Then you have to make the type of save that you don't normally make. And that is the criticism of Connor Hellebuck. His whole career is he doesn't do well in the playoffs when the plays break down. The off-schedule plays, right? Like, when the play is on schedule, you can't score on Connor Hellebuck because he knows what you're going to do before you know what you're going to do. But when Pucks bounce around in front of of the net and you've got to just make a play, that's where he hasn't, like, shined, right?

That is what we've all been waiting for. And then in the biggest game he'll ever play, in the biggest moment, he makes that save. Like, it's, it's not just the save. It's the fact that this goalie has been, we've been saying this goalie can't make that save for the last, whatever, three years, it seems like. Yeah.

And he makes it in that moment. It was so awesome. He snapped into Mark Andre Fleury Scramble mode for a second. It was like, it was like the Braiden Holpey paddle save or any of those. It's a real bummer that Jets are going to miss the playoffs this year because I'd like to see him in the playoffs now feeling invincible in like two months. It's really a bummer that we have to wait like a year and a half to really see was this a blip or is this the new Connor Hellebach as he reached God tier mode. This might be a little too romantic of me, but Miracle was on in my hotel room last night as I was flipping around.

And just watching this game, it just reminded me that like USA gold medal lore is Jim Craig coming up like this in a game. and Connor Hellbook now joins that. I mean, it's, I know everyone talks about like you can't just make everything about 1980. And I actually think that this is going to accomplish changing that because now there is a more recent gold medal, a more recent great success to talk about. But it's funny to me that, you know, the composition of the team totally different. USA was at least close to on level talent-wise with Canada. The top-in guys are the top-in guys. But in general, this was not, you know, I don't know if it was you or Russo-Laz that were like, this is not going to be a miracle if it happens.

And it's not a miracle. but it still does come down to when you have a goalie who plays at this level, Jesse. It completely, that's where, you know, the goalie's on the team. Having the best goalie in the tournament is a legitimate reason to win the tournament. It is. And it's also, this isn't like they didn't, this isn't just luck. Oh, wow. They just happened.

This isn't Halavai, an ECHL guy who just had the turn, the game of his life. And what can you do? It's like sometimes that's just how it works out. No, this is 11 years ago. USA hockey decided, we don't have any goalies in the NHL. We have to do this better. They called all the heads of state into a room. They figured out how to create a better development path for goalies. They started what they call the 51 and 30, which their goal was to have 51% of the goalies in major professional North American leagues, be American.

Now, they're not quite to that goal. They still have four years to get there. They might not quite reach the 51 percentile, but they have created. a factory of elite goalies that are coming out of the US NDTP program. It's not just Hellebuck. Jeremy Swamen is one of the best goalies in the world. Jake Ottinger could have had that same game. Like they came into this tournament.

They've been building for a decade to have the best goalies in the world. They came into the tournament with the best goalies in the world. And then their best one had the best game of his life in the big game. Like this is, they have been planning for this. Yeah. And then you have Jack Hughes or either Hughes, really? those are players who can walk the goalie through the door. Those are the kind of guys that they were missing in 2010.

Like, great as Ryan Miller was, there wasn't a Jack Hughes, or certainly not a fleet of Hughes and Cichucks and Eichols and Matthews. They were capable of making it stand up. So it does feel like the fulfillment of something for sure. Absolutely. All right, Laz needs a phone charger and a couple of Peronis. We're going to let him go from Milan. Las, awesome work.

Me too, actually. You guys crushed it over. there. So great job, and we'll see you back here soon. I appreciate it, guys. What do you think this means for USA hockey, Sean? Like, like, just kind of sticking on that note of the evolution here. Like, 80 was the one that kind of inspired the explosion of USA hockey. What will this one mean, you think, a big picture? It's a good question. I think we need to wait and see. You know, it's funny. Did you guys see that old Custin's tweet making their rounds today? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Where this is a zillion years ago. He and I left 2011. We were working together

somewhere else at the time. And I remember when he said that, it was noting that registrations for eight-year-old, for like eight-year-olds in 2011 were way up or whatever it was. He said, like, congrats on, like, let's go, 20-26 Olympics. I'm like, here we are. Okay.

Craig Cussons used to write about hockey. And he used to, he used to pay attention to that stuff. He was a pretty astute observer of the game back in the day, believe it or not. I am I it's only going to be it's only going to be good things right like I feel like it can only lead to positive stuff but I'm also interested in seeing like what the ceiling is for hockey in the United States because if you look at it

you know there's a gold a gold medal that was you know deserved and earned and also all kinds of successes Jesse you mentioned the goaltending stuff but also just throughout international tournaments at all levels like this has been a long time coming. So I think this is the capstone to what we've seen development wise over the last like 10 or 15 years. And I think it's fair to ask now what the ceiling is. I wonder if we're a little bit closer to it than we want to admit. Yep.

Like I'm not willing to say that this is going to usher in some, you know, 24 year run of dominance by the men's national team, right? But I do think it's a nice indicator of where things are throughout the system. it's it's proof that the they've they've invested so much time and so much money into that national development program and almost everyone on the ice today was has come out of that program and it just to me like you said it's a it's proof that all this time and effort and money that they've put into like kind of redesigning the way we develop hockey players in america is working now you can also say like mark did can it the Canada was still clearly the more talented team and you needed a miraculous game from your best goalie in order to do it. To me, that's saying,

well, the work isn't done yet. Like, you, like, there's still room, like, they still have space to catch up to Canada. Maybe in their, like in their eyes, it's like in four years, we want to be clearly the better team. Like, we want to, we want to be the more talented team on the ice where it's Canada saying, we need a miraculous game from our goalie in order to beat America. Like, it, it, it, it isn't proof that America has climbed to the mountain top and they are clearly the best hockey country, but it shows the gap between America and Canada has closed a lot. And the gap, I think, is most clear at the tippy top of the roster. I know we just slag McDavid and McCar and McKinnon for a while, and it's deserved because those guys choke.

Like, we can be real about this. But in Celebrini is the next one, obviously, that's where there's ground to be made up, is that where you talk about a true generational player, a McDavid Bid caliber, a McKinnon caliber guy. With all due respect to Austin Matthews and Patrick Cain and whoever else, the program in terms of skaters has not produced a guy like that yet. And maybe that's where there's more meat on the bone. And maybe that's where things can change, is that they can find and identify and develop a group of players where 10 years from now we're talking about the top four players in the

NHL being American, just like the top four players in the league right now are Canadian. Yeah, I was in New York earlier today, so I'm on a plane for the, you know, I was in the airport for the first two periods, on a plane for the third period. And I walk onto the plane. Co-pilots got the game going on his phone streaming. Guy next to me has the game on. You know, it's all over screens throughout the plane. That was a really cool thing in the United States. And I wasn't surprised by it. And I think that is like the biggest indicator of all this. Jesse, you talked about the goaltending factor in this conversation too. And like, you know, Canada's going to think, okay, we need a hero performance from the goalie. I felt like coming into this game that if Canada lost, people were primed to blame Jordan Bennington. And I get that you can, you know, game winners kind of a five-hole goal and people really hate five-hole goals. First goal, you know, boldie, I thought it was a really great goal. I didn't think this was like a horrible Bennington goal.

But I wanted to get your take on Bennington because I really felt like he pretty much held up his end. It's just that, you know, he only saw, what was it, 22 shots. and two of them go in. I don't think Canada could have asked for a lot more from Biddington, though. They were so good that the goalie ended up not being a factor for Canada. Like I will say, I don't think Jordan Bittington played a factor, whether they won or lost in this tournament. 28, 28 shots, actually.

I said 22, it's 28 shots. But I will also say, and I feel like a broken record, when I watch goalies, I care way more about the process than I do about the results. and I know that flies in the face of pretty much everyone else watching the hockey game, but from a process standpoint, I still saw the same thing from Bennington today. He had a couple huge saves where he was almost in the faceoff circle making the save, and that's something he's been doing all tournament. He's challenging more aggressively. He also looked like he was swimming in there a couple times.

And, okay, Bennington was good enough to win this game. I'll start by saying that. This is not me blaming Bennington, and I'm not blaming him for the final goal. However, on that final goal, if we're going to nitpick, And these are the best goalies in the world playing in the biggest hockey game in the last decade. So we're going to nitpick, right? Like, I'm sorry, but I have to pick apart little tiny things. And when you look at Bennington on that last play, one of my criticisms of him this season is it looks like he's guessing a little too much.

And on that last play, if you watch right before the pass across to Hughes, he goes into the RVH. Okay, that was guessing and he guessed wrong. He's so athletic. He still gets way out there to challenge the shot. but he is behind the play at that point because he dropped down into RVH. Now he's getting out there and setting his feet a half millisecond later than he would have if he hadn't guessed. Then he reads the shot wrong.

He was down in Butterfly. That shot's going straight into his pads or his stick, but he reads that the shot was high. He opened that five hole because he thought the shot was going high. And again, that's just because when you're behind the play just by a fraction of a millisecond, it's harder to read it. You're not as settled. You're not as set in your feet. So to me, it's like, I'm no way am I going to put this on Bennington, but it's the tiny little details are what make the difference in this. And we saw some of the concerns that we had for Bennington coming into this in that final Olympic defining play.

Yeah. Early game narrative was the Americans passing up shots. We saw Matthews do it a couple times. You saw Jack Eichael do it. They were making the extra pass rather than, you know, taking shots maybe that they could have. It was funny watching people freak out about it. it in real time as if it was not a concerted effort. Like I read that as a scouting report thing, not, you know, Austin Matthews is gripping a stick too tight and can't make a decision. That seemed, it seemed like the extra pass and passing up on shots, you know, to kind of get them moving across the crease and moving laterally was, was the point. It seemed like they were doing it on purpose. And it, you know, quibble with that if you want, I certainly think in a lot of instances

you would like to see Austin Matthews shoot, shoot that one in particular. from the doorstep in the first period. But I don't think it was an accident and I don't think it was a coincidence. Speaking of narratives, I've got a great point from one of our commenters here, Christopher Boyd, USA Power Play 100% through the tournament.

And I'm not going to make this whole podcast to like everyone owes Bill Guerin an apology podcast or whatever, right? There was legitimate criticism here. But in the end, he picked the team of guys for roles and the guys who he picked for the most controversial roles, the most controversial guys he picked, delivered. I mean, that penalty kill was outstanding.

Dylan Larkin did a lot of that five on three, and he deserves a ton of credit. I thought he was one of Team USA's most important players through this whole tournament. But Trocheck, Miller, Nelson, they hold up their end completely. Western Pennsylvania greatness from Vince Trocheck and J.T. Miller, yes. That's correct.

Yeah, I mean, the penalty kill, you could argue it won him the game. That five on three, like, with that firepower on the other side, it felt like a certainty that they were going to get at least one goal, maybe two. Like this could be a two-goal swing and the fact that they got nothing. And Hela Buk made a couple big saves, but none of them were like backdoor one-timers. Like he had the one-one-timer from the slot, but it was from far enough out where he was able to react to it and Butterfly. It's like they protected him about as well as you can protect him with

three guys defending that power play unit. Super impressive. They deserve all the credit. And like you said, give Bill Garen some flowers for making that decision. The five on three, also the 11 at the end of that game. I mean, that is just as important of a kill. I mean, we saw Finland basically go by the wayside on a similar, or maybe that was the checks. I think it was the checks on a similar situation. Like, you give them a late power play. You're taking your fate into your own hands and USA lived to tell the tale. That was the Slovox, actually. In the, in the, in the, bronze panel game. It was game over after after a power play like that, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Christopher Boyd also tosses in the Khan-Smith shift reference, the Henrik Zetterberg

from the 0708. A little bit reminiscent of that. I don't know if it was quite at that level of individual effort, but I think it was certainly that level of stakes and significance. Chris says, Chris says I know the reference. No, I have no recollection. You're not familiar with that one? I'll send you the video.

Any other thoughts from this tournament? Let's talk about the women here for a second, too, because we're talking about the U.S. winning both of these gold medals. This team USA on the women's side was unbelievable. That was what we were talking about earlier, Sean, where it is flipped. Canada was the one that needed to try to keep that a tight game because the U.S. was unsolvable in that tournament. They were unbelievable. I think that's an indicator.

We talked about maybe the next step for the U.S. men is having the one, two, or three best players in the world. It's funny that that is still the case for Canada. They have the best player in the world, Marie-Philippe-Palin. and the U.S. has overcome that fact to just the women's team to look like a total, a total juggernaut for the next, for the next however many years. Because to me, the big thing about this, about this, there are two things about the result in the women's gold medal game. One of them's Hillary Knight.

It's a, you know, remarkable moment for a remarkable player in an icon of American hockey. We can check that box. The other thing is what it portends. for the next four, eight, 12 years because the U.S. women are in such a position, right? Like, Caroline Harvey could be the best, could be the best hockey player on Earth in four years.

Like, that's very possible. Abby Murphy is an elite talent, on and on and on and all these players who are 20, 21, 23 years old up and down this lineup already. It's not just Harvey and Murphy either. It's Lela Edwards. It's Joy Dunn,

who looks like she's going to be a staple of the national team. Hisei. For however, Heisey. Yeah, can't forget her. On and on and on. The best players on the U.S. team are all 24 or 25 years old. Certainly not the case with Canada.

That's the reckoning for them, is that life after Poulin, whether it happens now or in four years, is coming. And I don't think they have an answer for it. The flip side is the Americans across the board, U-18, however you want to staff, it. Like, they are set up for success in a very, very real way, whether they have the best player on earth or not. So it's not, it's not a necessity to port this back over to the men. It's not a necessity to have the American version of Connor McDavid if they want to usher in some, some era of greatness here. It's not a must have because it seems like we're potentially watching the women do it, you know, without having their, their own McDavid analog either.

Like the Connor McDavid of women's hockey still plays for Canada. Yeah. And Canada's got one coming too. Like Chloe Primerano, you talked about Harvey potentially getting the best player in the world. Primerano is going to give her a run for her money for best defensemen in the women's world. Yeah, we'll see. As well.

She's having a little bit of a weird season at Minnesota. You know, she hasn't. And she didn't make the roster somewhat contentiously. So yeah, we'll see. like maybe Chloe Promeno ends up being Caroline Harvey, but Caroline Harvey is already Caroline Harvey. So there's still some work left to be done there. I'm interested in seeing how that plays out.

It kind of comes down to like it felt like this was like the old guard of women's Canada hockey and they were kind of, they held on to that and they stuck with that roster. So then the question is, well, is the new wave just not good enough to have unseeded them yet? And if that's the case, then this is the golden era for women's U.S. and they're going to dominate. Or maybe it was a mistake by Canada to bring the old guard. Right.

It could be a little bit of both. That's the problem. The answer to the question is like, is that new wave good enough and they were wrong for not bringing them or were they right? And the new wave just isn't going to be able to keep up with the U.S. Got to be the concern. You talking about Old Guard brought a thought that we're supposed to talk about back to my mind, Jesse.

And, Sean, I'm going to send this one to you. Sidney Crosby does not play in this game. He does it, I think, in a way that is very, team first, right? He's like, if I'm not 100 percent, I don't want to take a spot, I don't want to be the reason, right? I think that's kind of the thrust here. But what do you make? I mean, it's a hard

way in what could be his last Olympic opportunity to be watching from the sidelines. Yeah, I, I, just fascinated to see what he says about the, about the decision-making process, you know, and he's a general, he's a he's a simple guy in some

respects where I think it probably wasn't that tough decision for him if I had I guess. Like if he goes out there and says, I'm at 40% or whatever, if this means that Sam Reinhardt doesn't dress, or like whatever the choice, whatever the choice would have been,

I can't imagine struggling with it all that much. But it is. It's impossible not to watch that game unfold the way it did, especially down the stretch when we're watching, you know, Nathan McKinnon miss open nets and whatever happened in OT and blah, blah, blah. Like, to Sydney Crosby, I'll tell you one thing.

If Sidney Crosby's 100%, he's that game, the shape of that game is completely different. Martyr, he's not going to make those mistakes. Yeah. It's the only thing that wasn't perfect about this game. Like the fact that the U.S. and Canada, we've been talking about this for a decade,

and they met in the final, and we had the game that we all wanted, and it went to overtime, and we had like the huge moment that we talked about. Everything about this was perfect. except for it would have been better if Sidney Crosby was on the ice playing with Canada. That was the only kind of imperfection in this amazing tournament of hockey. Yeah, because if Canadians want the out, they have it now.

They can cry in their beers and say, Sidney Crosby wasn't around for this game and things would have been different. And like, is that potentially true? Sure. But it's not the reality we live in. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Final thing I want to end on is who kind of changed our opinions of them through this term.

I think we're all unanimous Jack Hughes up to stock. Yerislavkovsky's going to be the obvious one here. I think even Macklin-Celebrini, who's probably already on heart ballots coming into this tournament, just further solidified himself as very much in the best player in the world conversation. I think everyone's still chasing McDavid here, but, you know, he's in there. He's very much for real. It is not just about being the best player on his team and getting all the role. He was the best player on the best team in the world, or one of the best players on

best team in the world. Absolutely. That's, I mean, that was going to be my name. Oldie was going to be the guy I said, yep. Mm-hmm. We didn't talk enough about him. He scored that goal early and he, like, he proved he's in that group of player.

Like, he's not the best player on the U.S., but he's definitely in the conversation with Ikel, the Kachukh, Hughes, all those guys. Like, Boldie is, to me, tiered up into, like, he's in the top tier of forwards in the NHL. Too many people made it seem like in this. certainly this was not the case, but too many people made it seem like it was boldly chosen over Jason Robertson or Cool Coffield or whatever. And that's just not, it's not the case. He's a better player than those guys. And I think, and I think he proved it, you know, night in and night

out. And this goes back to what we saw from him at the Four Nations tournament as well. He was fantastic there. So I think like the process, you know, the kind of public glow up sort of started for him, you know, a year ago. But I also think he continued, you know, continued with that in Milan for sure. He's more along the Mark Stone lines where he's kind of agree with that. one of the best all-around players in the world. No one's ever going to have a problem with Matt Boldie being on it, being on a best on best roster for the United States. Absolutely.

And I think he's going to be there for a couple more of these tournaments. And he scored the first goal today, by the way. Right. We did not specify that. The other guy I'll throw in there and he didn't play today. So we're talking about kind of US and Canada. But for me, UC Soros, and this kind of transitions to, we're going right back into the NHL and the deadlines here.

And like, I don't know if the National Predators have any. want to trade UC Soros. He's the best player on their team, but his numbers haven't been great behind a pretty bad Nashville team for a while. And to me, if I'm a GM that had even considered that, and like I said, I don't know if there are calls, but to me, this tournament proved that if you play good defense in front of him, like the Finns did for most of the tournament, UC Soros is still an elite goalie. And he, it's nice to, like, I still believed it. I think most people still believed he's still elite despite not having great numbers behind Nashville. to see it with your eyes, though, against good competition, was nice to know that UCSarro is still,

I mean, he skates so well and he's still one of the best. And if Nashville were wanting to trade him, he is by far the best goal that you can add. Did they have a general manager right now, Nashville? Is it still just trots, helping out of things? I think it's you. It's me? I'll raise my hand. Yeah.

If it's me, I'm going to get on the phone like real quick here. They should, they should have traded him 15 minutes ago. Here's a good one. T. Hut, Marty Naches, performing. I think he's absolutely one who raised his stock in this tournament. He was better than Pasternak at this tournament. He was. That team was so top heavy and we were kind of counting

on the top guys and we all expected it to be NACCHIS and Hurtle. I, but like, I mean, sorry, we expected to be Posternak and Hurtle. And, but NACIS was the guy on that team. Riven, he's a superstar. He's not just a product of Colorado. He said it. Doing it without McKinnon. I think that's huge for him.

Lucas Raymond was Sweden's best player. I don't think that one's totally surprising. But The level of offensive impact, I mean, consecutive three-point games going into their, obviously, their elimination against the United States, but he was excellent. So there were a lot of big-time performances in this one of the, I mean, it's just so good to have the NHL back at the Olympics. This was such a fun two weeks. I so thoroughly enjoyed having hockey on all day, almost every day. And it gets a fitting ending with that gold medal game. So fantastic tournament.

Any final thoughts from either of you guys? Should we let these guys go? I can't believe we were robbed of that for 12 years. I know. I know. That's really it. I feel like over the course of this tournament, I found myself at various points, you know, thinking of Patrick Kane or guys like, you know, even someone like, I know Chris Kreider got his moment at the Four Nations tournament. But someone like him, who for like a very brief period of his career, would have been a no doubter, you know, Olympic team guy.

and he just aged out of it. There's a whole generation of players on both sides of things that missed out on having this opportunity for themselves and also that we missed out on watching them play in games

of this caliber. So yeah, it is, it's, I don't, and I don't mean to end it on a down note, but that is, that is true. Like, like we've missed,

it's a reminder of what we missed and a reminder of how important it is for the double IHF and the NHL, the IOC, and all these stakeholders to get their act together and make sure that this doesn't go anywhere and that we get this for the foreseeable future because this rules. Right.

Well, to end it on a positive note, I think that this was such a resounding success and the eyes of the world were on hockey so much that I don't, again, never put it past these people to make bad decisions. But I don't see how this, after seeing how great this was, I don't see how hockey can ever not allow the NHLers at the Olympics. This moment should be enough. This tournament should be enough. We shouldn't have to turn it into like what deliverables does this add to the mix for the for the NHL.

How does this increase TV viewership? Like what does the attention bump do for the league over the next month or two years or whatever? I don't care about that. It's about the games that we just saw. Like the attention that they, that hockey got because of this doesn't need to go any further. It doesn't need to turn in anything bigger. The fact that it happened at all. is enough of a win to make it worth it.

Two years in a row, now the NHL has absolutely owned the month of February. Let's not give that back. That's a very good thing for everyone. That is going to do it for us. You can obviously check back in on Wednesday. Sean will be back with other Sean to talk about probably something other than the Olympics, but I'm not going to reserve it because I think I'd love to hear from Sean McHen do about what just happens. I should have just called him and told him that we weren't live and just seen what he said.

Just let him go and filter. Don't let him know he's on Mike. Just see what the raw, uncut thoughts from McIndewer. We missed out. We'll give him a few days to gather, and I'll be very excited to hear from both him and Frankie. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Athletic Hockey Show. For Sean and Jesse, I'm Max Boltman.

Talk to you soon.