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After 12 years of waiting, best-on-best men’s hockey has returned to the Olympic stage.
The NHL is back, and it means Canadians can finally see generational players like Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon pull on the same jersey.
The Olympic men’s hockey tournament began on Wednesday. Canada will play its first game against Czechia on Thursday at 10:40 a.m. ET. You can watch all the action on CBC and CBC Gem.
“It’s our first game together, but that being said, there’s not a lot of time so we ’ve got to make sure that our game is where it needs to be and continue to get better with every period,” Crosby, this team’s captain, said on Wednesday.
Canada will also play Switzerland on Friday (3:10 p.m. ET) and France on Sunday (10:40 a.m. ET).
Here are a few things you should know before the Canadians get started:
What about Canada?
Canada will be led by a deep and dangerous forward group. It’s an embarrassment of riches to be able to deploy McDavid, MacKinnon and Crosby down the middle on three separate lines.
On the blue line, the Canadians will be led by the best pairing in the NHL, Colorado’s Makar and Devon Toews.
Many see goaltending as the Canadians’ weakness, but two-time Olympic gold medallist and Hockey Fall of Famer, Martin Brodeur, sees things differently.
All three of Canada’s goaltenders — Jordan Binnington, Logan Thompson and Darcy Kuemper — are Stanley Cup champions.
“I don’t see it as a weakness,” Brodeur told CBC Sports. “There’s winning pedigree. They’re goalies with experience. They’re big factors in each of the teams that they’re playing in.”
There’s plenty of familiarity up and down the team from the roster which won the 4 Nations Face-Off last year. The entire blue line is back.
It’s an advantage for the Canadians in a tournament that doesn’t allow for much time to gel.
Host Ariel Helwani asks Sidney Crosby if Milano Cortina will be his last Olympic Games as a competitor.
“Just definitely more comfortable with all the players, coaching staff, the systems, everything,” McDavid said. “You can just tell that it’s the second go at it.”
There are some new faces, too, including 19-year-old Macklin Celebrini and gritty Tom Wilson.
Celebrini has been among the top point-getters in the NHL in his second season on a young San Jose Sharks team. His maturity impressed the Canadian brass, and a stint alongside Crosby at the world championship last year helped, too.
“I think he’s earned his spot for a reason on this team,” Crosby said. “To see how he’s continued to improve his game over the last year has been impressive. I think he’s just got to do what’s made him successful.”
Wilson, meanwhile, will be the biggest player on this team. He’ll add skill but also a bit of brawn to any line he plays on. Wilson never shies away from a battle in the corners.
That’s a big part of the identity the Canadians are trying to build.
“We want to be a tough team to play against, obviously,” McDavid said. “We’ve got a lot of skill but we want to defend hard and do all the little things. It’s going to be a quick tournament. Three quick games and we’ve got to be ready to go right off the top.”
Who is the favourite?
Plenty of people are expecting (and hoping for) a rematch of the Canada-U.S. rivalry that took centre stage at the 4 Nations tournament last year.
The Americans are definitely a team to watch. The U.S. boasts depth in net, offensive threats like Auston Matthews, Jack Hughes and Jack Eichel, and arguably the best defenceman in the world, Quinn Hughes.
They’ve got also got the Tkachuk brothers, who likely won’t be throwing punches at the Olympics, but will be annoying to play against nonetheless.
But there’s plenty of other talent in this tournament beyond North America.
The Finns are missing their best player, Aleksander Barkov. Even without him, they should be a defensively-sound team.
Sweden’s players have been dealing with injuries, including star forward William Nylander, but they’re always a threat.
And don’t rule out Czechia, which has one of the best goal scorers in the world (David Pastrňák) or a Slovakian team powered by young talent that upset the Finns 4-1 on Wednesday, in a game that kicked off the men’s tournament.
How does the tournament work?
Twelve teams are chasing Olympic gold. They’re broken into three groups of four teams.
Canada plays in Group A with Switzerland, France and Czechia. Group B includes Sweden, Finland, Slovakia and host Italy. Group C includes the United States, Germany, Latvia and Denmark.
Every team will play preliminary round games against the teams in their group. After that, the teams will be ranked from one through 12 “according to special criteria.”
Juraj Slafkovsky scores a beauty against Finland.
That includes their position in their group, number of points accumulated, goal differential, higher number of goals scored for, and where they sit in the world ranking compiled by the International Ice Hockey Federation.
The top four ranked teams will receive a bye into the quarterfinals and will be deemed the home team in their quarterfinal matchups.
The remaining eight teams will play in the qualification round to fight for the last quarterfinal spots.
The winners of the quarterfinal matchups move on to the semifinals, and the winners moving on to play for Olympic gold.
The gold-medal game is set for Feb. 22 at 8:10 a.m. ET.
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