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Colorado Avalanche center Brock Nelson celebrates after his winning goal during overtime of an NHL hockey game against the Washington Capitals on March 22 in Washington. (AP Photo\/Nick Wass)<\/p>\n
DENVER (AP) \u2014 The NHL players who skated at the Milan Cortina Games peaked way earlier than usual. They had to, with an Olympic gold medal on the line.<\/p>\n
Very little downtime later, they\u2019re trying to peak again. They need to, with hockey\u2019s silver Stanley Cup up for grabs.<\/p>\n
The game plan for teams with Olympians leading into the playoffs revolves around getting them plenty of rest. That may mean skipping morning skates, limiting their practice time, cutting back on game minutes or, in extreme cases, sitting them out. For some squads \u2014 looking at you, U.S. (gold), Canada (silver), Finland (bronze) and fourth-place finisher Slovakia \u2014 their time on the ice was pretty much the equivalent of a first-round playoff matchup.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of hockey in a short amount of time,\u201d New York Islanders center Bo Horvat said after playing for Canada, which played six games in 10 days.<\/p>\n
Then again, some players got a gauge of what\u2019s required to re-energize after competing in the 4 Nations Face-Off last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake the rest whenever you can find it, for sure,\u201d said Avalanche forward Brock Nelson, who helped the U.S. to its first men\u2019s Olympic hockey gold medal since 1980. \u201cThe (NHL) schedule is just so compact for everybody now. Just trying to ride the energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The season paused for 19 days from Feb. 6-24 to allow players to participate in the Olympics. Adding the holiday break, each team is playing 82 games over 170 days \u2014 one every 2.07, even more condensed than every 2.15 days in 2024-25 with 4 Nations. In 2023-24, teams played every 2.26 days with stops only for the holidays and All-Star festivities.<\/p>\n
Back to their day job<\/p>\n
Returning to the Ottawa Senators was not easy for Brady Tkachuk after leading the U.S. alongside brother Matthew.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely an adjustment coming back, not going to lie, playing in probably the biggest game that has been played in a while and then the emotions of winning,\u201d Tkachuk said. \u201cIt took a little bit to get readjusted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tkachuk, the 26-year-old Senators\u2019 captain, is back to \u201cnormal\u201d now. Older teammate Lars Eller, who played for Denmark at his first Olympics at 36, considers this better than the midseason doldrums.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re kind of past that Olympic fatigue now, if there was any,\u201d said Eller, whose team is in the thick of a wild-card playoff chase in the East. \u201cNow your energy level is actually increasing here towards the end as you\u2019re fighting for a playoff spot and you\u2019re eyeing the end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ottawa\u2019s Tim St\u00fctzle turned 24 in January, and his preparations to represent Germany at the Olympics and try to get his club back to the playoffs began last summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was prepared to go for a long season, and yeah that\u2019s where the foundation kind of builds,\u201d said St\u00fctzle, who tied for second at the Games in goals with four. \u201cObviously right after the Olympics, I was pretty exhausted with the time change and everything. But now I feel great.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no choice but to grind through, Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re limited in your options,\u201d Bednar explained. \u201cIt\u2019s very little practice, lots of recovery days, whether they\u2019re at the rink or away from the rink, trying to make sure we\u2019re getting rest on the road and the travel schedule is appropriate. What do you do besides rest them?\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not really an option for Colorado. The Avalanche are leading the way in the race for the Presidents\u2019 Trophy, which goes to the team with the best record, with Dallas close behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019re not in a position, in my opinion, to be resting guys,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cSo you play through.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Stars minimize the wear and tear on their Olympic players by cutting down on minutes as much as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t just, say, give two days off and it\u2019s gone,\u201d Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. \u201cYou just do (the rest) over a period of time and get their bodies built back up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stars defenseman Thomas Harley, who skated 118 minutes for Canada in Milan, insists he hasn\u2019t felt much of a difference. Dallas goaltender Jake Oettinger cracked, \u201cI mean, I didn\u2019t play a single second at the Olympics so I\u2019m fresh as a daisy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oettinger, who backed up Connor Hellebuyck, believes the experience will be a benefit in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned a lot about what it takes to win,\u201d Oettinger said. \u201cI think a lot of those guys in that room had won Stanley Cups, and just the messages the guys were saying and how loose and light they were, even in the biggest pressure game of all time, was really impressive to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Avalanche forward Martin Necas is already recharged after leading Czechia with eight points in five games at the Olympics. Then again, he\u2019s 27.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great to play on a different stage for a little bit,\u201d Necas said. \u201cNow it\u2019s exciting to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playoff rosters<\/p>\n
The Avalanche had eight NHL players take part in the Olympics, including Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Devon Toews for Canada. Also with eight were Minnesota (four on Sweden), Tampa Bay and Vegas. Dallas and Boston each had seven go.<\/p>\n
A quartet of Finnish players from the Stars \u2014 Miro Heiskanen, Roope Hintz, Esa Lindell and Mikko Rantanen \u2014 teamed up with Colorado\u2019s Artturi Lehkonen to win bronze. Two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida had a league-leading 10 players in Milan but are on track to miss the playoffs after two years of playing into June.<\/p>\n
The last time NHL players won gold and lifted the Stanley Cup in the same season was 2014, when Jeff Carter and Drew Doughty helped Canada beat Sweden in Sochi and then Los Angeles beat the Rangers in the final.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndividually, guys have different things that they do (to get ready),\u201d Nelson said. \u201cBut down the stretch here and playing these games, the energy is going to be high no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado Avalanche center Brock Nelson celebrates after his winning goal during overtime of an NHL hockey game against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5114],"tags":[191,5,87,4,61358,61357,190,109,5222],"class_list":{"0":"post-533850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-capitals","8":"tag-capitals","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-national-sports","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-olympians-chase-rest-ahead-of-stanley-cup-runs","13":"tag-olympians-chase-rest-ahead-of-stanley-cup-runssports","14":"tag-washington","15":"tag-washington-capitals","16":"tag-washingtoncapitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116326855749382124","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533850","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=533850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}