Are the Hughes or Tkachuk brothers more important to Team USA?
It’s official: Team USA will take on Team Canada for gold on Sunday in the men’s ice hockey tournament at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
After their 6-2 victory over Team Slovakia on Friday, the American men will attempt to follow in the footsteps of the women’s team by beating Canada to win another gold medal in Milan.
Of course, it’s been 46 years since Team USA rode the momentum of their ‘Miracle on Ice’ win to capture their most recent gold in men’s hockey. They’ve never beaten Canada with Olympic gold on the line — but this time around, they have a secret weapon on their side: brotherly love.
The Americans have two sets of brothers on their roster: Jack and Quinn Hughes, and Matthew and Brady Tkachuk. Those four players have each scored at a point-per-game pace or better in this tournament. They give Team USA the sort of built-in chemistry that can be hard to find at the Olympics, and now, they need just one more win to end a decades-long drought.
On Friday’s edition of the Daily Faceoff Olympic post-game show, host Jonny Lazarus asked The Athletic‘s Arthur Staple which set of brothers he feels is more important to Team USA’s chances against Canada on Sunday.
Arthur Staple: I think it’s the Hughes brothers, and I say that to this point. I feel like the Tkachuk brothers need to do it in a positive way going forward. I don’t think we’re going to see the line brawl off the puck drop like we saw in the championship match at the 4 Nations — although that would be awesome if it did happen. But that line, to me, with Eichel between those two guys, is gonna be matched up, most likely, with McDavid’s line, to be more of a neutralizer. I think that’s why you have those guys as your top line.
You’re gonna match them up against McDavid, but you’re asking them to tie shifts. You’re not asking them to win, because you have Matthews behind them, now you have Larkin’s line with Jack [Hughes] on it going well, you have a little more jam with the veteran fourth line. […] But I just feel like Canada’s top guys, especially when they load it up with MacKinnon, you want the puck, you want to be up the ice, you want to be moving fast, and I think, for the U.S. team, the Tkachuk boys are going to have to put away the sideshow nonsense, at least early in that game, and try to be hard-checking, forechecking guys, disrupting and doing the things they do really well without the puck as opposed to scrums and things like that.
Watch the full episode here: