Men's Hockey at the 2026 Olympics Quiz

Answer: Juraj Slafkovsky

Slafkovsky ended the tournament tied as the fourth-highest point scorer in this Olympics, netting four goals and four assists. The Finns outshot the Slovaks, but couldn't make it through goalie Samuel Hlavaj (outside of one goal on a power play). Slafkovsky ended with a funny assist on Finland's empty net: Slafkovsky, all alone in their zone without a stick, had to dance around the puck, somehow defending until Adam Ruzicka arrived to score Slovakia's fourth and final goal. In 2026, USA had over 550,000 registered hockey players, Canada had over 600,000, and Finland had about 50,000. Slovakia has less than 10,000!

The other players are the top scorers for three other countries: Martin Necas for Czechia, Timo Meier for Switzerland, and Joel Armia for Finland.
(Four Nations = Canada, Finland, Sweden and USA).

Answer: Jordan Binnington

Many of the best games of the tournament were defined by excellent goaltending, and Binnington's saves were among the best. Binnington had previously secured victory for the Canadians in the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off (Canada, Finland, Sweden and USA), not that that convinced followers of the stat sheets. Despite much scrutiny going into the Olympics, retrospective analyses uniformly agree that Binnington plays a different game when it's for country.

It's hard to even decide who to mention in a summary of the Canadian squad. The five goals were scored by five players at their first Olympics: Macklin Celebrini, Bo Horvat, Nathan MacKinnon, Mark Stone, and Nick Suzuki. Assists were supplied by Connor McDavid, Cale Markar, Mitch Marner, Brad Marchand, and past gold medalist Sidney Crosby. Canada's other two goalies, Logan Thompson and Darcy Kuemper, didn't play in this opener. Neither Montembeault nor Wedgewood were part of Team Canada.

Answer: Two sets of brothers

Whereas the Canadian side looked like it was cheat-coded to win in an NHL video game, the American side opted for a highly cultivated roster that played well together. Several American-born NHL scoring leaders - Cole Caulfield, Alex DeBrincat and Jason Robertson - were passed over for two sets of brothers, the Hughes and the Tkachuks.

Defenseman Quinn had the highest average icetime among the Americans, spending most of his career with the Canucks before a trade to the Minnesota Wild shortly before the Games. Center Jack Hughes is (at time of Games) a center for the New Jersey Devils with yet a third brother, Luke Hughes. Their mom helped coach the gold-winning U.S. women's hockey team!

The Tkachuk brothers, Brady and Matthew, both have reputations as bruisers and harbingers of chaos. If you're picturing the Hanson Brothers of "Slap Shot" fame, you're on the right track, though the Tkachuks bring with violence a good bit of skill. Tkachuk was the captain of the Ottawa Senators, and Matthew won the Stanley Cup in 2024 and 2025 with his Florida Panthers. The rest of the roster included elite goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, Stanley Cup winner Jake Guentzel, and third-generation Olympian Brock Nelson.

Answer: Italy

Poor host nation! The 11-goal gap broke the previous NHL-era record differential of 9 goals (set by three teams at three Olympics: Russia vs. Kazakhstan, 1998; Latvia vs. Ukraine, 2002; and Russia vs. Latvia, 2006). But really, you can look at this as a direct comparison between NHL era and what came before. Every single Finnish player had past NHL experience, and no one from the Italian side did. You might not think such a mismatch could have tournament impact, but it did affect tournament seeding.

The high score secured Finland fourth seed, a quarterfinal bye, and thus, fewer games to play on the path to bronze.

Answer: Six men on the ice

The Canadians had an unusual problem going into the game with Czechia: they had yet to face any adversity during their run. But fifteen minutes in, a surprise goal by David Pastrnak resulted in Canada trailing for the first time in their run. They later equalized, but the Czech's physical play and good saves by Lukas Dostal produced the unthinkable: a game Czechia might win.

No further proof of the chaos is needed than to say this: neither the refs nor the commentators noticed that Czechia's third goal came with six men on the ice. This wasn't a mistimed swap on the bench - six men were defending, passing, and even celebrating in plain view of the officials!

The Canadian hero was unexpected: late in the third, Nick Suzuki stalled while his teammates changed out. He played to center, and among heavy traffic, tipped the puck in for the tying goal. Mitch Marner scored the winner for Canada during overtime.

Answer: Sweden

In a single-elimination bracket, someone has to hit on some bad luck, and it just wasn't Sweden's year. They were already unlucky to be seeded in the same group as Finland, the gold medallists from the 2022 Olympics in which the NHL did not participate. That group had a rock-paper-scissors scoresheet: Slovakia beat Finland, Finland beat Sweden, and Sweden beat Slovakia - but only 5-3, one goal short of stealing the bye into the quarterfinals from Slovakia. Dalibor Dvorsky called it "the best loss of my life."

Unlucky Sweden was seeded seventh in the elimination rounds, which meant - gulp - they had to get through the second-seed U.S.A. to make it to a medal. Sweden fought a great fight, tying the game 1-1 with under two minutes left. But the USA were consistently great in overtime, and the elder Hughes brother, Quinn, snuck in the eliminatory goal.

Answer: Sidney Crosby

Sidney Crosby tore a ligament in his knee when slammed by Czech player Radko "the Butcher" Gudas, and was forced to sit out both the semifinal game with Finland and the final against the USA. McDavid was promoted to Crosby's captain spot, Celebrini took his place in Canada's power play, while Crosby did what he could to rally the troops during practice.

The game itself turned out to be yet another comeback for Team Canada. It ended with Nathan MacKinnon working another miracle, slipping the puck past goalie Juuse Saros with less than a minute left of regulation.

Answer: Brady Tkachuk, Matthew Tkachuk, and Erik Cernak

Only three 10-minute misconducts were handed out all tournament, and all came from this scrum. The whistle blew with Cernak and Matthew Tkachuk skating into the camera's view grabbing ahold of each other, Brady attempting to hold Cernak off. When Cernak started swinging, both brothers responded in kind. All players received a misconduct, and Brady a 2-minute minor on top of that - which only added to the USA's impressive number of penalty shut-downs.

Answer: Finland

Alas, the frustration wasn't over for Slovakia. The game turned out to be a showcase for the Finn's fine shooting by Sebastian Aho, Erik Haula, Roope Hintz and Kaapo Kakko. Chalk the skewed score up to an empty-net push by the Slovaks. It resulted in two extra goals and a couple of Slovak sticks being bashed over the crossbar.

The boys from Bratislava really wanted to give their country something to be proud of. Said captain Tomas Tatar: "This result is very cruel in the end. We have a very young team and moments like this will help them in the future." Get 'em next time, Slovakia!

Answer: Jack Hughes

The match everybody hoped to see came to fruition. For the Canadians, it was a chance to prove the all-out dominance of their stars. Team Canada's offense looked disciplined, while the Americans were aggressive and speedy. Speed, naturally, was first to score - Matt Boldy got a breakaway in the first period. It was a matter of time for Canada's technical play to break through, and Makar tied the contest late in the second period.

The goaltenders contrasted as well: Binnington an aggressive, edge-of-the-crease stopper and Hellebuyck a wall who likes to play back against the net. At least when he's playing for Canada, Binnington seemed capable of standing up to any goalie... but not the mandate of Hellebuyck. During regulation, Hellebuyck stopped no less than 41 shots. It looked like it was over for the Americans when the Canadians secured a 5-on-3 power play... but it doesn't matter how many guys you're up if you can't get past the goalie. Unbelievably, Team USA went the entire tournament without giving up any power plays, killing 15 of 15 penalties.

The final moments will go down as some of the most exciting hockey ever. With just 6:34 left in regulation, forward Jack Hughes takes a high-stick to the face from Sam Bennett, leaving a couple of teeth on the ice. The USA squares up to capitalize on the four-minute power play, but can't, and with a minute left, Hughes high-sticks Bo Horvat back, squandering the advantage.

Sitting in the box, Hughes was about to become the guy who threw away the U.S.'s chances. But the USA made it to overtime, and Lady Luck (more accurately U.S. defensemen Zach Werenski) passed the puck to Jack. He shoots - and twenty-five Americans enter the annals of Olympic history.

It was forty-six years to the day since the 1980 Miracle on Ice (the last time the Americans won). The birthday of Johnny Gaudreau Jr., whose deceased father's Team USA jersey the team posed with in their celebration photos. America's bicentennial. George Washington's birthday! It was like all fifty stars had aligned. In his post-game interview, the misty-eyed, bloody-mouthed Hughes proclaimed: "I'm so proud to be American today." You've never seen someone so happy to get his teeth knocked out.

For Canada, the defeat was shocking and unexpected. Some blame MacKinnon's shocking miss on a wide-open Hellebuyck; others put it up to Sidney Crosby's absence. Still others were outraged at *another* missed call of too many men during a sloppy change by Team USA (though no goal came of this one). It might not be the gold they felt promised, but Canada's got plenty to be proud of, including the top two scorers for the tournament: Connor McDavid's record-setting 13, and upstart Macklin Celebrini's 10.