2026 Olympic
Hockey
Canada is a perfect 2-0 at the Olympics after beating fast and talented Switzerland 5-1 in a preliminary round game. Gregory Shamus / Getty Images
MILAN — Canada has guaranteed itself a spot in the Olympic quarterfinals, but in some ways, it remains a work in progress.
Canada is a perfect 2-0 at the Olympics after beating fast and talented Switzerland 5-1 in a preliminary round game Friday at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. With the win, the Canadian men clinched the top spot in Group A and a bye directly into the quarterfinals.
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Connor McDavid had his second consecutive three-point game for Canada, which has now combined to beat the Czech Republic and Switzerland by a total score of 10-1 through two games.
Canada will finish the round-robin preliminary round against France on Sunday in a game that will have no impact on its tournament future, but will still serve a major purpose for coach Jon Cooper.
Despite the lopsided score, Cooper saw elements of Canada’s game in the first period that he did not like. Though he didn’t specifically say so, captain Sidney Crosby mentioned some puck-management issues that allowed Switzerland to generate quality scoring chances that would have been goals were it not for the play of goaltender Logan Thompson in his Olympic debut.
The win and the quarterfinal bye give Canada a chance to take a breath and reset after the game against France.
“The job is to keep getting better,” Cooper said. “To come in here and play the back-to-back, we passed that test. We’ve got to pass one more. And then we get a little bit of a break. And you think about the travel, the practices, the games, it adds up. It’s tiring, not only on the body, but on the mind.”
McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Macklin Celebrini and Thomas Harley scored for Canada, which made a series of adjustments over the course of the game as Cooper continues to learn about his team.
One big adjustment was a line change that saw McDavid, MacKinnon and Celebrini on the same line. That trio almost immediately produced a Celebrini goal that created momentum early in the second period.
“I thought in the second we found our game a little bit more, played pretty fast, got that goal from Mack,” Crosby said. “I thought from there we had a lot more momentum.”
What must be scary for the rest of the field is that, while Canada has been excellent through two games, it has not seemingly played its best hockey yet.
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The game took a scary turn with a bit less than three minutes remaining when Canada forward Tom Wilson collided with Switzerland’s Kevin Fiala. After a long delay, Fiala was loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled off the ice as Canadian players gathered near the gate to tap their sticks.
“We all want to compete hard, we all want to play as hard as we can, but you don’t like to see that,” Crosby said. “Obviously, it didn’t look good. We hope that he’s OK. It’s a tough one to see.”
After putting up three assists in Canada’s tournament-opening 5-0 win against the Czechs, McDavid had a goal and an assist in the first period against Switzerland, giving him five points on Canada’s first seven goals of the tournament. McDavid added another assist in the third period.
McDavid scored his first Olympic goal at 5:45 of the first period, converting a beautiful cross-ice pass from MacKinnon to give Canada a 1-0 lead. A little more than five minutes later, McDavid pulled up in the offensive zone and found defenseman Harley with a saucer pass to the weak side of the ice, and Harley beat Akira Schmid through the legs to put Canada up 2-0.
McDavid struck again late in the third period when he followed up a Celebrini forecheck, made an incredible move to the net, got a shot on goal and MacKinnon cleaned up the rebound to make it 5-1 Canada.
“I saw Mack working up the ice, and I just tried to work up the ice too and help on the forecheck. He’s a dog on a bone, that kid, it’s impressive,” McDavid said. “He wins a puck battle, makes a good play into the middle. Just tried to score initially, and obviously, Nate follows it up.”
But we are accustomed to McDavid’s offensive wizardry. This is not all that surprising.
What is surprising is how McDavid has become a physical tone-setter.
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In the opening game, it was a thunderous hit on Czech defenseman Lukáš Sedlák on McDavid’s first shift that got the Canada bench buzzing. Against Switzerland, on the shift following Swiss forward Pius Suter’s power-play goal that made it a 2-1 game, Swiss defenseman Andrea Glauser had a puck coming toward him behind the Swiss net when McDavid lowered a shoulder into Glauser’s chest with a little less than seven minutes left in the first period.
Glauser labored to the Swiss bench, hunched over in pain, and did not return to the game. Swiss coach Patrick Fischer feared it might be a concussion. Glauser is Roman Josi’s regular defense partner — they played together in leading Switzerland to the World Championships finals the last two years — and if he were to be lost long-term, it would be a big blow to Switzerland’s medal hopes.
But the McDavid hit — again — appeared to wake Canada up after allowing a goal.
“We want to play physical, and when he’s leading the way in that category, I think we all notice. I think that shows how badly he wants it,” Crosby said. “He’s leading in a lot of other ways, but especially that way, we all see it and we all want to follow suit.”
McDavid lighting it up offensively is one thing. If he’s also going to be a physical sparkplug for Canada, that seems inherently unfair.
Well, so much for the three-headed monster. Instead, what emerged during Friday night’s game was a new top-line monster.
The idea from the Canadian coaching staff entering the Olympic tournament was to have McDavid, MacKinnon and Crosby centering three different lines. The point, Cooper said, was that they learned at 4 Nations that a normal 23 minutes for a player in an NHL game was like 16 minutes of best-on-best international hockey, based on the high pace and energy needed. So, they wanted to try spreading out the big dogs and not overuse them here in Milan. Hence, the three-headed monster down the middle. It worked marvellously in the opening 5-0 win over the Czechs as members of all four forward lines scored.
But late in the first period Friday night, there was MacKinnon on the right wing of the McDavid top line with Celebrini, replacing Wilson for an offensive zone faceoff. Two shifts later, early in the second period, all three combined for a mesmerizing passing play that culminated in Celebrini one-timing a shot to give Canada a 3-1 lead, and they combined on MacKinnon’s goal that made it 5-1 late in the third period.
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“I’d liked a lot of our game until some point later, as that period went on in the first period, I didn’t love it,” Cooper said. “There was an opportunity I saw on a faceoff. They went together, and they showed what they needed to show.”
The tweak sent Nick Suzuki back to his natural center on a line between Brandon Hagel and Wilson, where he finished the game. Suzuki had a few defensive miscues in his own zone in the first period while playing wing on a line with MacKinnon and Hagel, one time failing to chip it out past the Swiss defender. Again, that is not a natural play for him along the boards as he doesn’t play wing in the NHL and hasn’t since his rookie season in 2019-20. So, we wonder if the coaching staff not only wanted to load up with Celebrini-McDavid-MacKinnon, but also decided it was wise to put Suzuki back where he’s most comfortable, at center.
Cooper denied that, stating that Suzuki was a “Swiss army knife” who can play any position, without seeming to notice the irony of using that analogy after a game against the Swiss. Suzuki said the board play was a bit of an issue.
“I wouldn’t say it was tough to play the wing,” Suzuki said. “It’s a little bit different, obviously, but I feel comfortable wherever. I just want to be able to play anywhere in the lineup and have the coaches trust me in different spots. There were a couple of plays on the wall you maybe want back. Once I moved to center, I felt pretty comfortable there.”
Whatever the case, it means Team Canada, for now, is a more traditional top-six, bottom-six team. Crosby’s line with Mark Stone and Mitch Marner, which was very good for a second game in a row, completed the top six, while the fourth-line group of Bo Horvat with wingers Sam Reinhart and/or Sam Bennett/Seth Jarvis completed the bottom group along with the new Suzuki line.
As we saw at 4 Nations, Team Canada modified its forward line combinations a number of times over four games. Cooper isn’t afraid to tweak.
Cooper said after the game that defenseman Josh Morrissey, who was injured against the Czechs and missed the game against Switzerland, would also miss the game against France, but that he was not ruled out for the tournament. At least not yet.
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Travis Sanheim replaced Morrissey on the back end, Jarvis came in for Brad Marchand up front, and Jordan Binnington didn’t even dress two nights after blanking the Czech Republic. Against Switzerland, Thompson got the start in goal with Darcy Kuemper backing up.
The net result was that everyone on the Canadian roster has now appeared in uniform at the Olympics.
Jarvis played the fewest minutes in what appeared to be a 13th-forward role, while Sanheim played the fewest minutes as the seventh defenseman.
But the key adjustment was Shea Theodore moving up to replace the injured Morrissey on the second pairing with Colton Parayko. This is very much worth monitoring moving forward, depending on how long Morrissey is out. The coaching staff was going to rely heavily at five-on-five on the top four of Devon Toews-Cale Makar and Morrissey-Parayko. Of course, Theodore is a talented player who can probably handle it, but it’s a change of plans.
Thompson, meanwhile, was very sharp, especially in the first period when the Swiss had several decent looks, including an aggressive save coming out to thwart Nino Niederreiter when the Swiss broke in three-on-one, and the Winnipeg Jets forward found himself alone on the Washington Capitals goalie. All in all, it was a rather comfortable-looking Thompson in his first-ever taste of Olympic hockey. And thus far, according to Cooper, what was viewed as Canada’s Achilles’ heel — goaltending — has allowed his team to find its footing and work through some issues.
“We’ve defended, I would say, relatively well,” Cooper said. “The big thing is, when we’ve broken down, both our goaltenders have been there for us. Still a long way to go, and it’s tough in these tournaments when it’s short, and you’re getting guys together, trying to find chemistry, systems, and all those things that go into it. My job as a coach is to let these guys breathe, let them go be hockey players, but understanding that in the end, it’s how many you keep out, and you’ve got to be able to keep them out. And so far so good.”
Lots to think about for the coaching staff, with Binnington and Thompson faring rather well in their respective starts ahead of their next game Sunday versus France to wrap up the preliminary round.
And those thoughts for the coaches are not limited to the goaltenders. The makeup of the forward lines and even the defense pairings — pending more news on Morrissey — appear to be up for debate as well.
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