The US is predicted to announce its roster for the 2026 Winter Olympics males’s hockey event on Friday, and will probably be a major check as as to whether or not the group has realized from its earlier errors.
Early indications are it could not have.
USA Hockey appears set in its flawed methods
For what is perhaps the primary time in a long time, the USA has lastly reached some extent the place its expertise pool is on the identical degree as Canada’s. Not solely by way of high-end expertise, but in addition by way of depth.
There isn’t a cause why the USA crew, given the expertise it has to choose from, shouldn’t be getting into the 2026 video games as one of many high favorites to win the entire thing. All it has to do is make the good selections and take the correct gamers.
Opposite to what the 2004 film “Miracle” might have told you, the correct gamers are, in reality, one of the best gamers. The US crew has not all the time operated with that mindset.
The measuring-stick gamers for this roster and the job administration does in constructing it are going to be Dallas Stars ahead Jason Robertson and New York Rangers defenseman Adam Fox.
If the USA had a transparent imaginative and prescient and was merely taking its greatest gamers, each of them could be slam-dunk decisions. No-brainer decisions. Straightforward decisions.
Robertson, as of Tuesday, has extra targets and extra whole factors than any American-born participant. However after being left off final yr’s 4 Nations Face-Off roster, each indication main into Friday suggests he is still on the outside looking in for this team. Not taking him would not only be setting the team up to fail, however setting it as much as fail in the identical manner it all the time does — not scoring sufficient targets within the greatest video games.
Fox, in the meantime, already has a Norris Trophy on his resume, is within the prime of his profession and is as impactful offensively as nearly any defenseman within the league. He additionally seems to be fighting for a roster spot with Seth Jones and Noah Hanifin.
If that is the course the USA goes in, it will merely be doubling down on the identical dropping formulation that has held it again in so many earlier best-on-best tournaments involving NHL gamers.
The US hasn’t truly received considered one of this stuff because the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, and that was its first main win because the 1980 Winter Olympics with the Miracle On Ice. In each main event since then, it has constantly fallen brief, and a scarcity of goal-scoring towards one of the best groups is all the time the foundation explanation for it.
Generally that lack of goal-scoring has been the results of the USA merely not having the expertise pool to choose from. Lately, and in latest tournaments, it has been as a consequence of it being caught within the improper mindset of attempting to construct its rosters like it’s an NHL crew with NHL constraints.
There isn’t a have to take grinders and checkers over superior abilities. You don’t want “third-line function gamers” on these groups. The one cause these roles exist within the NHL is as a result of there are usually not sufficient high-end gamers to fill 32 rosters in a salary-capped league. Groups must deal with monetary limitations, they must cope with free company, they’re competing with so many different groups.
That’s not the case with an Olympic crew. Groups have limitless assets right here. They don’t have to restrict the talent on their rosters. The most secure and smoothest path to victory is knowing the correct gamers are, in reality, one of the best gamers.
