{"id":452615,"date":"2026-02-09T22:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T22:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/452615\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T22:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T22:17:12","slug":"canadas-olympic-goaltending-trio-ready-to-silence-doubters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/452615\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Olympic goaltending trio ready to silence doubters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Team Canada is one of the favourites to take home Olympic gold in men\u2019s hockey with NHL players participating for the first time since 2014, but one big question has lingered over the squad.<\/p>\n

While Canada is deep up front with Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon leading the way and two-time Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar anchoring the defence corps, a favourite to be Canada\u2019s starter in net has yet to emerge as Jordan Binnington, Darcy Kuemper and Logan Thompson are battling for the role.<\/p>\n

Binnington, Canada\u2019s No. 1 at the 4 Nations Face-off, was a key piece as Canada defeated the United States 3-2 in overtime in the final.<\/p>\n

However, of the trio, Binnington has struggled the most in the NHL this season. He is 8-17-6 with an .864 save percentage and 3.65 goals-against average as the St. Louis Blues are in second-last place in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a completely different environment,\u201d Binnington told NHL.com. <\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s been in the back of our minds or in our minds for the last six to eight months-plus. The moment is here, and it\u2019s about just letting go, playing free and playing your style.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson has the best stats of the trio this season, as he is 19-16-4 with the Washington Capitals while recording a .912 save percentage and 2.45 GAA.<\/p>\n

Kuemper is 14-11-9 with a .900 save percentage and 2.59 GAA with the Los Angeles Kings.<\/p>\n

Neither Thompson nor Kuemper were at the 4 Nations Face-off last year but played their way onto the Olympic team as 4 Nations goaltenders Adin Hill and Samuel Montembeault have both struggled in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

All three goaltenders have Stanley Cup titles on their resumes. Binnington backstopped the Blues to the Stanley Cup in 2019 while Kuemper did the same with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022. Thompson earned a Stanley Cup ring in 2023 with the Vegas Golden Knights but missed the playoffs due to injury.<\/p>\n

Carey Price had a sterling performance at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, as he allowed just two goals in five games to lead Canada to gold.<\/p>\n

Team Canada head coach Jon Cooper insists the current trio is up to the task and are deserving of being in Milan.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, Carey Price goes down as one of the greatest goalies for sure of his generation and of all time. He was a winner. We have those guys,\u201d Cooper told NHL.com. \u201cSome of these guys may not go down as generational goaltenders, but they\u2019re Stanley Cup winners. They have championship pedigree. They\u2019ve made the big saves at the times they\u2019ve needed to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched that in Darcy Kuemper in my own building in Tampa. I watched it in Jordan Binnington. I\u2019ve watched Logan Thompson the last two years. Like, they\u2019re as good as anybody, and what they\u2019ve done for us not only last year but as teammates, I mean, we have all the faith in the world in them. I understand people have to write about stuff, but our guys go through a wall for them, and they do the same for us. To me, it\u2019s not a story. I don\u2019t know where it comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada kicks off the preliminary round on Thursday against Czechia and Thompson backed Cooper\u2019s words.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone always just says how they think the goaltending is the weakest part [of Team Canada],\u201d Thompson said. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s been the word for the last couple of years. I don\u2019t see it that way. I don\u2019t think we see it that way. But for some reason everyone else does.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Team Canada is one of the favourites to take home Olympic gold in men\u2019s hockey with NHL players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4759,47402,5,42191,42190,4,42978],"class_list":{"0":"post-452615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-darcy-kuemper-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8475311","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-jordan-binnington-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8476412","12":"tag-logan-thompson-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8480313","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-olympics-sports-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116042992596471264","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}