{"id":464399,"date":"2026-02-20T10:40:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T10:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/464399\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T10:40:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T10:40:27","slug":"did-canada-lack-leadership-from-nathan-mackinnon-in-the-quarterfinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/464399\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Canada lack leadership from Nathan MacKinnon in the quarterfinals?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The biggest story from the quarterfinals of the Olympic men\u2019s hockey tournament between Canada and Czechia was the missed call in the third period for too many men on the ice<\/a>. The Czechs had eight players on the ice when Ondrej Palat put the Czechs up 3-2.<\/p>\n

After the game, Canadian star Connor McDavid was disappointed that the Canadian players didn\u2019t see what happened<\/a>. According to Ryan Rishaug of TSN, McDavid stated the following:<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m upset we didn\u2019t see it either,\u201d McDavid said. \u201cbut everybody\u2019s on the bench watching the game, and none of us saw it, so refs didn\u2019t see it, nobody saw \u2013 it seemed like, Glad that it didn\u2019t cost us our tournament, with that being said we definitely gotta be more aware of what\u2019s going on out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, there are reports that there was one Canadian player who did see what happened. According to James Duthie of TSN<\/a>, he did speak to one player who admitted there were too many men on the ice. Duthie did not mention who the player was in his X.<\/p>\n

Now we are hearing from scoutingtherefs.com<\/a>, who the player was who saw that the Czechs had too many men on the ice. It was allegedly Nathan MacKinnon. In this report, MacKinnon was asked if he was aware and had the following response:<\/p>\n

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\u201cYeah. The refs didn\u2019t though. It\u2019s all good.\u201d<\/p>\n

TSN\u2019s Pierre LeBrun was able too confirm that MacKinnon saw something.<\/p>\n

This response is even more baffling. If MacKinnon even had any suspicion that there were too many players on the ice, why in the world did he not go directly to Canadian coach Jon Cooper or the referees? Why wasn\u2019t he screaming at the top of his lungs, \u201ctoo many men.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not wearing the C making sense\"Jan<\/p>\n

Jan 25, 2026; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon (29) reacts after missing a scoring chance against the Toronto Maple Leafs during the second period at Scotiabank Arena. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

With Sidney Crosby out of the game with an injury<\/a>, MacKinnon had the opportunity to provIde Team Canada with much needed leadership but apparently did not do anything. For him to say, \u201cit\u2019s all good,\u201d it is ok now, but it was not at the time.<\/p>\n

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Hockey fans might be surprised that it is Cale Makar, who is the Canadian assistant captain on the Olympic team, and not MacKinnon. Makar has played 475 fewer NHL games than his Avalanche teammate.<\/p>\n

It could also explain why MacKinnon has not been the Avalanche captain. Colorado\u2019s captain has been Gabriel Landeskog since 2012.<\/p>\n

The post Did Canada lack leadership from Nathan MacKinnon in the quarterfinals?<\/a> appeared first on The Big Lead<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The biggest story from the quarterfinals of the Olympic men\u2019s hockey tournament between Canada and Czechia was the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,1116,19,192,144,5277,155,9057,7,5,40236,517,4,1768,9789,768,56308,31],"class_list":["post-464399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-avalanche","tag-cale-makar","tag-canada","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-connor-mcdavid","tag-czechs","tag-gabriel-landeskog","tag-hockey","tag-james-duthie","tag-nathan-mackinnon","tag-nhl","tag-ondrej-palat","tag-quarterfinals","tag-sidney-crosby","tag-too-many-men-on-the-ice","tag-toronto-maple-leafs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116102537989945300","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464399","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=464399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}