The NHL's best this week: Can the U.S. beat Canada for a men's hockey gold medal?
Team USA defeats Team Canada in the gold medal game in overtime. If I was a script writer, that’s how the men’s Olympic hockey tournament would end. I’m tapping into my pro wrestling fandom to “book” the Olympics for maximum benefit for the interest of the game in North America. I have thought about this…
Team USA defeats Team Canada in the gold medal game in overtime. If I was a script writer, that’s how the men’s Olympic hockey tournament would end.
I’m tapping into my pro wrestling fandom to “book” the Olympics for maximum benefit for the interest of the game in North America. I have thought about this at length, and this is the best possible outcome. Yes, I’m saying this as a Canadian. This is almost as devious as Tate McRae endorsing Team USA.
Here is my reasoning. Fans are still talking about the Miracle on Ice from the 1980 Games — there’s even a new documentary about it. It was a massive moment in American sports hockey, one of the biggest. That will never change. But we are long overdue for another signature moment of USA hockey success.
Even the captain of that 1980 team, Mike Eruzione, told us on “The Drop” that he’s sick of talking about it and wants to see another generation get that same glory:
If Team USA were to win gold in Milan, a similar explosion of interest in hockey would follow. We’re already seeing an increase this season, with viewership up and the show “Heated Rivalry” bringing new fans into the mix. Team USA earning gold would be in the vicinity of a “1980” moment — a rallying, unifying moment where the country celebrates the U.S. being tops in the world.
Looking at the team, this isn’t a big stretch either: It’s a stacked roster, with incredible goaltending depth. The team also has heart and soul (look no further than the Tkachuk brothers). The U.S. has also achieved success at different levels recently — including wins at the 2024 and 2025 IIHF world junior championships and the 2025 world championships.
Now for the Canadian side. Interest in hockey isn’t going anywhere in Canada. Canada is the top dog in hockey and has been for a very long time. If The Great White North were to lose, it would be devastating for team and country. To see the U.S., a team that Canada has toppled on multiple occasions on the international stage, parade around as champions would be worse for fans than Connor McDavid winning the Conn Smythe in a Stanley Cup Final loss.
But it does set up a captivating redemption arc for the country. Starting with the World Cup of Hockey in 2028 and then the Olympics in 2030, Canada will do something it hasn’t experienced in best-on-best competition on a long time — hit the comeback trail. Canadians will rally behind their players and yearn for glory once again.
Now, I can be talked out of the gold medal game overtime scenario; that was mainly a callback to last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off final. Another intriguing scenario — if we’re thinking of the narrative arc — would be that U.S. wins gold without ever facing Canada in the knockout round. This would give the Canadians the right to claim that yes, the Americans won, but they never faced Canada in order to do it. Which would spark a healthy debate until the two countries met again.
Imagine what a Canada vs. USA final would look like under these circumstances at the 2028 World Cup of Hockey, and the 2030 Olympics. Magical!
Jump ahead:
Games of the week
What I loved this weekend
Hart Trophy candidates
Social post of the week
Stick taps
Biggest games of the week
We are officially in “Olympic szn” — so it’s all Olympics, all the time. Here’s a master schedule for men’s and women’s hockey.
If you’re looking for another athlete with a hockey connection to cheer for, two-time X Games gold medalist skier Mac Forehand will be representing the USA in Milan Cortina, looking for his first Olympic medal. He is the cousin of Philadelphia Flyers forward Trevor Zegras.
What I loved this weekend
The Battle of Florida is as thrilling as any NHL rivalry, past or present. Technically this was from Thursday, but nothing will top this for me: Another all-out brawl between the Florida Panthers and Tampa Lightning resulted in 147 penalty minutes.
Amazingly, that was only the fourth most in a Panthers-Lightning game all time, and the second most in a regular-season NHL game in 2025-26; not surprisingly, the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers top the list with 154 on Dec. 23.
The Battle of Florida also produced 136 penalty minutes on Dec. 27. In a preseason game in October, the teams combined for a whopping 322 penalty minutes and 16 ejections.
Based on recent Stanley Cup success and the fiery nature of this feud, Florida is definitely the State of Hockey in 2026.
Hart Trophy candidates if the season ended today
Connor McDavid has a three-point lead atop the scoring leaderboard with 96 points. He had six points in his final five games before the Olympics. Nathan MacKinnon has 93 points, with five points in his last five contests.
I’ve had Macklin Celebrini in the third spot for much of the season, but Nikita Kucherov has established a 10-point gap between him and Mack to take over third place.
It’s time to place Kuch as a finalist on this list. With 13 points in his last five games, he now has 91 total on the season.
He has simply been obliterating the competition lately and could easily pass both McDavid and MacKinnon once the NHL season restarts on Feb. 25.
Social media post of the weekend
The Artemi Panarin trade news broke courtesy of ESPN’s Emily Kaplan … and Adam Schefter. An unlikely dynamic duo that joined forces like Shaq and Kobe to deliver one of the biggest pieces of trade news that we will get this season!
Hopefully not lost in all of this, including @AdamSchefter breaking NHL news: what a move by Los Angeles to go all-in, especially for Anze Kopitar’s final season.
Panarin’s camp kept this close to the vest but few people around the league guessed the Kings as front runners. https://t.co/R3rfT9wuVI
— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) February 4, 2026
Stick taps
"Star Wars" has a brand-new hockey reference.
Before we get to that, first let me shout out to Rancho Obi-Wan, the largest collection of Star Wars memorabilia in the entire world -- Guinness World Record-certified and everything!
There is a sports section among the 100,000 items, and one of the things displayed is a Colorado Avalanche Star Wars Night hockey puck. What's noteworthy about this puck is that it's from a game from the 2014-2015 season, which is one of the very first to have been put on in the NHL.
Now about that hockey reference in the "Star Wars" universe. Mike Chen, who covered hockey a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away -- i.e. Fox Sports, Versus and SB Nation -- has released his latest Star Wars novel "Star Wars Outlaws: Low Red Moon," a story featuring characters from the popular "Star Wars Outlaws" video game, released on Feb. 3.
"I had actually started a few years prior contributing to a Sharks site called The Feeder (which is still up as LetsGoSharks.com) and freelancing for some of the earliest online sports outlets," Chen told ESPN. "Everyone in that space just kind of got to know each other and eventually bigger outlets would pick us up. So I wound up doing regular coverage for Fox Sports and Versus/Comcast while managing SB Nation's NHL site and writing for SB Nation Sharks sites Fear The Fin and Battle of California."
Now to the reference. There's technically two. One is a planet that is referenced in the book named Arda. Was it explicitly named because of me? Who's to say? Was there already a planet named Arda from years ago? Unclear. Nobody should investigate. Am I going to take credit for the naming of this planet and claim it as my own? You bet I am.
The second is a character named Zeev Oversam, who is an executive corporate liaison to the Empire.
Let's unpack the name. Zeev definitely looks like a nod to Zeev Buium, current Vancouver Canucks defenseman. But at the 2024 NHL draft, the NCAA national champion with the Denver Pioneers was drafted 12th overall by the Minnesota Wild.
The Sharks had the pick directly before this and selected fellow defenseman Sam Dickinson from the OHL's London Knights at 11th overall.
Remember: Chen is a Sharks fan.
Zeev Oversam.
Zeev Over Sam.
Could this be one Sharks fan's opinion of general manager Mike Grier's draft decisions? A clever way to sneak in hockey names into The Galaxy Far, Far Away? Or both?
I didn't ask Mike if this was indeed the case. For now, I'm rolling with it as 1000% Star Wars (and hockey) canon.
