MILAN — Before the Olympic men’s hockey tournament began, Team Canada attended the short track speedskating mixed team relay final, a sport where chaos rules and the margins are razor-thin.
You can prepare for four years, do everything right and get taken out by a competitor losing an edge and wiping out.
“It just shows that the level of separation between winning and losing, at any level, is so small,” Brad Marchand said after a Team Canada practice back on Feb. 11. “But at this level, you’re dealing with the best of the best in every sport, and the margins for error are so small. You see some of the sports that you’re competing in and fractions of a second will make you win or lose. It’s one push, or the way you cut an angle, whatever it is. It definitely puts it in perspective.”
That perspective should serve Team Canada well now, because that was the difference between Olympic gold and silver Sunday. Team USA won the gold medal game 2-1 in overtime Sunday, but for Canada, the loss was about a series of moments, a series of split-second decisions, a series of incredible saves from Connor Hellebuyck, a series of missed opportunities for Canada.
And the weight of those moments will feel heavy for Canada’s players, because they are going home with a silver medal and their entire country is disappointed.
But Canada can’t win every best-on-best tournament, as they have since flaming out without a medal in Torino in 2006, two decades ago. And this loss is not a national crisis in Canada. There is no need for a summit. Canada dominated the final 40 minutes of regulation, outshot the USA 42-28, and if that game were played 100 times, Canada would probably win 95 of them. USA deserves a ton of credit for how they played, but Hellebuyck deserves the most.
“That’s one of the best games I’ve seen a team play that I’ve been a part of,” Canada defenseman Drew Doughty said. “I thought we were so good tonight, especially for the last 40 minutes. Yeah, it’s shocking.”
What will weigh heaviest for Canada’s players are the moments they had to make the difference in the game, the way — as it were — they cut an angle on a short-track oval and saw their Olympic dreams disappear as a result.
Nathan MacKinnon stood on the goal line, leaning on his stick against his knees, hunched over and stunned, completely still.
His Team Canada and Colorado Avalanche teammate Cale Makar had just made an aggressive decision on a 50-50 puck in the Team USA zone and lost it. MacKinnon was faced with a similar decision on a similar 50-50 puck in the defensive zone and hesitated. He did not aggressively go after it as Makar had a few seconds earlier.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Makar said. “I mean, that’s three-on-three. It’s a lot of split-second decisions. And for myself, it was kind of a tough spot there, and I saw the puck bounce. It’s either you back it up and live to fight another day or try to make a play on it. But if you don’t get the puck, you’ve got to get the man. And unfortunately, I didn’t get both. And I just couldn’t get back.”
A moment later, U.S. defenseman Zach Werenski had the puck on his stick instead of MacKinnon, and a moment after that, U.S. forward Jack Hughes — who had beat Makar to that puck at the other end of the ice — had the puck on his stick, and the game was over.
MacKinnon was left to stand there, hunched over.
And full of sorrow.
“It was very sad. I felt sad,” MacKinnon said afterwards, clearly still affected. “It felt like a really good opportunity slipped away, as it did. It’s going to be a long time before we can try to get this one back, and obviously with a much different team, I’m sure. So it’s just sad, for sure.”
MacKinnon did not want to talk about what happened on the overtime goal, and no one can blame him. That has to be difficult to digest. But it does not fall completely on MacKinnon, as intense a competitor as you will find.
But in the immediate aftermath of the game it was difficult not to wonder what was going through his mind. Once he left the goal line as the U.S. players celebrated near center ice, MacKinnon skated over to the side boards not far from the Canada bench, where again, he stood in complete stillness, his hands resting on his stick, near his chin.
For minutes. Not a single movement.
As organizers tried to get the ice ready for the medal ceremony, a woman had a few words with MacKinnon, and he didn’t move.
It took a long time before Nathan MacKinnon was able to compose himself after the gold medal game. (Geoff Burke / Imagn Images)
In that moment, what had just happened in overtime was fresh, and that moment of hesitation would be heavy. But so would what happened midway through the third period, when Macklin Celebrini somehow found MacKinnon alone on the left side of the ice, with Hellebuyck out of position for the only time all night, and MacKinnon missed the net with the game tied 1-1.
“Just couldn’t finish, didn’t have that touch tonight,” MacKinnon said. “I missed a wide-open net. Yeah, just didn’t have that finishing. I thought we generated so many looks. It felt like it really wasn’t meant to be tonight.”
But that wasn’t the only moment Canada had to have this game end differently. And MacKinnon was not the only player to feel he could have made that difference.
Celebrini had a clean breakaway, albeit at the end of a shift, a few minutes earlier. He tied MacKinnon for a game-high six shots on goal. He is 19. This will be difficult.
“We had lots of chances, I had lots of chances, I missed,” Celebrini said. “You get put in those situations, you have to capitalize on your opportunities, and I didn’t.”
Connor McDavid had a clean breakaway in the second period and didn’t capitalize, Hellebuyck getting the better of him. Canada had a 93-second five-on-three power play in the second period with one of the most dangerous power-play units ever assembled, and couldn’t score. At the start of the third, Devon Toews had what felt like an easy tap-in, and Hellebuyck got the better of him, too, reaching back with his stick to practically pull the puck off the goal line.
Everyone involved in all of those moments would feel the same thing MacKinnon does.
“Honestly I haven’t even seen it, but if he saved it, that’s a great save,” Toews said. “I don’t even know how Mitch (Marner) put it on my tape, I just felt it there and tried to shovel it in. And yeah, it didn’t go in.
“We had five or six of those kind of looks tonight (and) we couldn’t quite put one in.”
As MacKinnon received his silver medal, he bowed his head, accepted the medal and remained stone-faced. He still had the silver medal around his neck as he navigated the mixed zones.
When MacKinnon received the small plush toy of the Milan Olympics mascot, however, he accepted it graciously, just as stone-faced. But then he looked down at the doll he was holding in his hand, considering how he was feeling, and just shook his head in disgust.
Here he was, one of the low points of his career, and he was holding a doll.
MacKinnon’s good friend Sidney Crosby understands how MacKinnon feels, because he feels the same way, even though he couldn’t play in the gold medal game. Every player on the team had a moment where he could have made a difference, because when the margins are this slim, every decision and every play is a potentially difference-making moment.
“We all feel that way,” Crosby said. “Obviously being close to Nate, knowing what he puts into it, what it means to him, honestly, I think it means so much to everybody in that room. Players, staff, you name it. But it’s not about that one play. We had so many opportunities. We did so many good things. We played the right way and we played the way we knew was going to give us success. Unfortunately, it’s just one game and anything can happen.
“I think after a loss, it’s always easy to sit there individually and say ‘what could I have done better,’ or ‘if that went in it would have changed the game.’ What I would say about him is he played an incredible game. There were so many opportunities we could have won that game. As a team I don’t think there’s much more we could’ve done. That includes him.”
When Canada gets another opportunity like this, four years from now, Connor Bedard will likely be there. So will Matthew Schaefer. Celebrini will be 23, in his prime and armed with his experience from this tournament.
And MacKinnon will be there too. As will McDavid. As will Makar. Hockey in Canada is in fine shape.
Sometimes, the moments don’t go your way, just as they don’t for all Olympic athletes. And that’s all that happened here.