On December 31, 2025, Team Canada named eight d-men to its Olympic roster. Since that time, d-man Evan Bouchard of the Oilers has the same number of points as six of the eight combined.
Bouchard has 23 points in 16 games.
Travis Sanheim, Thomas Harley, Shea Theodore, Devon Toews, Drew Doughty and Colton Parayko have played 77 games and also have 23 points.
The six have been on the ice for 76 goals for and 83 goals against, making them a collective -7 at even strength.
Bouchard has been on the ice for 30 goals for 20 goals against, +10 at even strength.
points
In crunch time, in the heat of playoff competition, Bouchard has also been the Oil’s best d-man for two years running, helping his team to the Stanley Cup Final both years.
Bouchard finished third in scoring in the 2025 playoffs, and second in scoring in the 2024 playoffs.
He was sixth in goals plus-minus in the 2025 playoffs at +6, making him the top Edmonton Oiler. He was number one in goals plus-minus in the 2024 playoffs at +14, and also the top Oiler.
While his defensive play can be uninspired and even lazy at times in the regular season, he cranks it up in the playoffs, so much so that coach Kris Knoblauch turned to him on the PK in the 2025 playoffs, where he’s since been the Oil’s most effective PK d-man.
After Cale Makar, there’s no doubt that Bouchard is Canada’s best offensive d-man. He’s also a reliable and steady d-man against the toughest of competition in the playoffs.
With all that going for him, is it not obvious incompetence for Team Canada management to have left Bouchard off of the Olympic team?
I’ll suggest it is, but that view isn’t shared by certain Toronto media personalities, who would rather focus on the occasional blown assignment from Bouchard in regular season games to make their case that he’s not fit for Team Canada duty.
This from Drew Livingstone, executive producer of SPDN sports in Toronto, after Bouchard played made a rancid defensive mistake on Saturday, getting deked out at the dz-blueline by Brock Faber, who went in and scored to make it 7-3 wild.
“Exhibit 3076 why Bouchard isn’t on Team Canada,” said Livingstone.
Added Zack Phillips, producer of The Sheet with Jeff Marek: “That’s an 11:30pm Friday night beer league defensive play.”
Ex-NHLer Tom Chorske added: “Not diminishing what Faber did here…but the fact Bouchard gets paid over $10M per season and gives this type of effort is unacceptable imo. And this isn’t an isolated incident.”
Fair comment from Phillips and Chorske, but Livingstone? The goal came in garbage time with the Oilers down three goals, not deep in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the ultimate testing ground of NHL players.
Perhaps Livingstone is a bit short of knowledge about that final critical part of the NHL season, given his city of origin.
But in these biggest of NHL games Evan Bouchard is a stone cold killer on the attack, all alligator blood and snake venom, lashing the opposition with his biting shot and venomous passes.
The ‘don’t fix it if it’s not broken’ theory
One other argument I heard about Team Canada going with the eight selected d-men is that they all played in the 2025 Four Nations, which Canada won, so why mess with a winning combo?
Don’t fix it if it’s not broken, right?
There’s a certain logic to this, except that Canada barely won that tournament, winning in the 2026 Olympics is going to be that much harder, and not all of Canada’s d-men performed well at all in the Four Nations.
Thomas Harley and Drew Doughty were solid. But Cale Makar, who was hurt and not close to bringing his best game, helped create eight Grade A shots at even strength, but made mistakes on 10 against.
Josh Morrissey and Devon Toews were -4 each on even strength Grade A shots, according to Cult of Hockey video review.
And Colton Parayko? He chipped in one just two in four games, while making mistakes on 15, putting him at -13.
Parayko simply wasn’t up to it in that tournament.
Four Nations
I’ll be cheering hard for Paryako and the others at the Olympics. They’re stepping up for Canada. They’re giving their time, blood, sweat and tears. I admire them greatly.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not a disgrace in hockey assessment that Bouchard was left off the team.
Perhaps if there’s a late injury, it’s not too late to rectify this error. It’s only a gold medal and Canada’s hockey reputation on the line.
By the way, here’s the play that Bouchard made just before his mistake on Faber’s goal.
At the Cult of Hockey
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