12 years without best-on-best at the Olympics has cost some players prime opportunity to play

Now that we’re less than a week away from the men’s hockey tournament at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, it’s remarkable to think that the last time NHLers went to the Olympics in 2014, current-day stars like Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, and Jack Eichel hadn’t even arrived in the NHL yet. Each of those players will represent their country at the upcoming games, but there’s an entire generation of players whose primes came and went without getting their shot at Olympic hockey.

With the NHL opting not to send their players to the last two Winter Olympics, elite players like Steven Stamkos, Tyler Seguin, and Mark Scheifele were robbed of their best chance to be an Olympian. If anything, fans and players alike should make sure to cherish this upcoming tournament, since best-on-best men’s hockey at the Olympics is not a guarantee.

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk was joined by former NHLer and two-time Olympic gold medalist Rick Nash to discuss the players who were denied their Olympic opportunity.

Tyler Yaremchuk: How bad do you feel for guys like Steven Stamkos and Mark Scheifele? Those eight years we missed, that was the prime of their careers. That was their shot to get to go. How bad do you feel for kind of guys in that age range?

Rick Nash: Yeah, I think it’s important. It’s a great question because not a lot of people think of that. Everyone’s kind of excited about it moving forward, but realistically we kind of missed a generation at the Olympics, at least in hockey years. You talk about guys in their prime, and obviously the players that you mentioned with some others too that just missed this experience and this opportunity of going to play at the Olympics and getting that chance to win an Olympic gold medal. You feel terrible, but obviously you see both sides of it from the players’ standpoint, from the NHL’s standpoint, a front office standpoint. I’m just glad they all worked it out and we didn’t get to miss some of these other generational talents who are incredible to watch and you’re finally going to see them go against each other with their country’s colors on.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…