For the NHL’s misplaced technology of Olympians, 4 Nations Face-Off is a reminder of what may have been | USAEMALL.com

It hurt then. It hurts a little more now.

Then, he was 21 years old, at the top of his game and the top of the world. The words “acetabular labrum” weren’t in his vocabulary, and COVID-19 didn’t even exist. There was nothing but 40-goal seasons ahead, and he’d be pulling that Team Canada sweater — and that gold medal, too — over his head soon enough. Time and talent were on his side.

So yeah, it stung when Tyler Seguin was left off the 2014 Olympic team. It had come down to the wire, and his red-hot start to his first season with the Dallas Stars, his fourth season in the NHL, wasn’t quite enough to get him in. But he was genuinely happy for his buddy Jamie Benn, who did make that Canadian roster that went on to win gold in Sochi, Russia.

“I was able to live vicariously through him, and that took the edge off a lot,” Seguin said.

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Because Seguin’s turn was coming. He was sure of it. When you’re young, you’re always sure of it. Doubt and regret don’t dwell in the mind of a 21-year-old superstar professional athlete. He had won the Stanley Cup as an 18-year-old rookie and returned to the Final two years later. Everything seemed to come easy back then.

“At that time, you’re still confident in yourself that you’re going to stay healthy and stay elite and be at the top of the league,” Seguin said. “You think you have another chance. Then all of a sudden, it’s 2025 and you realize you don’t have another chance.”

Seguin has enjoyed a hell of an NHL career. He’s 12 games shy of 1,000. He’s scored 360 goals, posted 808 points and played in 133 playoff games and six All-Star games. His name is etched in silver on the game’s most hallowed prize.

But there will always be a gap in that resume. He’ll never be an Olympian. He knows that now.

“Is there bitterness?” he asks himself. “You’d have to ask me again in 10 years. I’m still bitter about not making the World Juniors, that’s always bothered me. As far as the Olympics, I don’t know, you’ll have to ask me when I retire. But man, what an experience it would have been.”

Seguin is part of a lost generation of Olympians in the NHL whose careers peaked between 2015 and 2024. They missed out on the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, because of a dispute between the NHL, IOC and IIHF, and the 2022 Games in Beijing because of the pandemic. With the 4 Nations Face-Off starting this week in Montreal and Boston, it’s pretty clear who’s on the radar for the 2026 games in Italy — and whose Olympic hopes have been dashed forever. And it’s quite a list.

Thanks to injury and/or circumstance, Steven Stamkos never played for Canada in the Olympics. Neither did Brent Burns, Ryan O’Reilly, Taylor Hall, Claude Giroux or Mark Scheifele. Anders Lee never suited up for the United States, nor did Mikael Backlund for Sweden.

Giroux put up 102 points during the 2017-18 season — he would have been a lock for Team Canada in Pyeongchang. O’Reilly was in the midst of his fourth straight top-five Selke Trophy season in 2021-22, less than three years removed from a Conn Smythe. He would have made Team Canada in Beijing. Stamkos should be a three-time Olympian, but a broken leg cost him Sochi, the NHL robbed him of Pyeongchang, the pandemic took Beijing from him, and Father Time very well might keep him out of Milano Cortina.

These are some of the best and most accomplished players of their era. Many of them have worn their nation’s colors for the World Championships, or the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.

But none of them played on the world’s biggest stage. And it’s likely none of them ever will.

“If it doesn’t happen, it just wasn’t meant to be,” Stamkos said. “I had three years where I would have went. One year injury, two years didn’t get to go. It could be a lot different story, but that’s how life goes, right? It is what it is.”

Without NHL players participating, the Olympic Athletes from Russia defeated Germany to win gold in men’s hockey at the 2018 Olympics in South Korea. (Harry How / Getty Images)

It’s a fluke more than anything, an odd quirk of bad timing. And none of these players needed an Olympics to validate his illustrious NHL career. But it’s one of those things that gnaws at the back of a player’s mind, that leaves a hole in a resume and in a hockey soul. Sidney Crosby still would be one of the greatest hockey players of all time if he hadn’t played for Team Canada in Vancouver in 2010, but the golden goal he scored against the United States elevated him to an even higher echelon in the game’s history. Carey Price never won the Stanley Cup in Montreal, but his performance in Sochi gave him a champion’s aura and reputation.

Not going to the Olympics doesn’t hurt a legacy. But going to the Olympics can cement one.

“Playing in the driveway as a kid, you’re pretending to win the Stanley Cup,” O’Reilly said. “The journey of that and how hard it is to do that, that’s why it matters the most. The Olympics is such a short tournament, so it’s different. But it’s truly best on best. That’s what makes it special. I don’t know if I ever thought I’d have the opportunity to do it, but being in that situation, being close but not getting in, it’s disappointing. It’s a bummer.”

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It’s not just about legacy, either. The very idea of being an Olympic athlete conjures up something unique in the sports world — living in a quaint alpine village, checking out the ski jumping and the luge, mingling with elite athletes from all over the world.

Summer hockey in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ rink against Team Europe and Team North America simply can’t measure up.

“To be an Olympian is something so cool and different,” O’Reilly said. “I’ve been lucky enough to still play a lot of international games. I got to be a part of the World Cup (in 2016), which was cool. Still, it’s not the same. You hear the stories of guys just being in the village and getting to experience that, going to other events, it’s something that is just so cool. It’s not even the hockey and representing your country — it’s just being an Olympian. That’s something special. It would have been nice to have the opportunity to try, at least.”

Same goes for the 4 Nations Face-Off. Like that 2016 World Cup, it should be fun, yes, but it doesn’t involve Czechia, Slovakia, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Latvia and, of course, Russia. The tournament should be exciting and the hockey should be of high quality, but for the players, it’s as much an audition for the 2026 Olympics as anything else. That’s the one that counts. And make no mistake, NHL players have their eyes set squarely on Milano Cortina.

Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen suited up for all three of Denmark’s games in the IIHF qualification tournament last September just to make sure his country would make the Olympics, so he could finally realize his own dream of becoming an Olympian at 36 years old. He was 8 years old when he watched NHL players participating in the Games for the first time in Nagano, Japan, and that instilled in him two lifelong goals — to be an NHLer and to be an Olympian. The first dream came quickly. The second is three decades in the making.

“In Denmark, we didn’t really watch the NHL as much growing up,” Andersen said. “But I remember watching the ’98 Olympics on TV because they were in Japan, and the time zone was better for us. It was really cool and it made me want to do that.”

For NHL players, the 2018 Games in South Korea were the real missed opportunity, the one that engenders the most frustration with the league’s decision-making. Gary Bettman and the owners are always wary of shutting down their league for three weeks in the middle of the season — during the one month where they have no football or baseball competition, at that — but the players have been steadfast in their insistence on returning to the Olympics. The 2018 decision was a bitter pill for the players to swallow.

There’s not nearly as much regret about the 2022 Games in Beijing, which were played under severe COVID restrictions and lacked the usual Olympic feel and flair.

“I know some of the guys who went, and they were obviously happy to be there, but they knew that it wasn’t the real experience,” Andersen said.

Goaltender Frederik Andersen has played in international tournaments, such as the World Championships, with his native Denmark — but never the Olympics. He should get the chance in 2026. (Martin Rose / Getty Images)

Andersen is a pending unrestricted free agent and is turning 36 in the fall, but he’ll play for Denmark whether he has an NHL job or not. Other players won’t be so lucky. Team Canada is simply too good, too deep, for aging veterans like Seguin and Hall, O’Reilly and Burns to make. Stamkos is still holding out hope that he can prove worthy of consideration next year, but getting left off the 4 Nations roster after a slow start doesn’t bode well for the 35-year-old future Hall of Famer.

“Who knows what could happen until it actually goes off next year?” he said.

For the others in this lost generation, wearing their country’s colors on the sporting world’s grandest stage will remain a regret, a what-if, a dream unfulfilled.

“I don’t think it’s something I think about, but it’s something I have thought about,” Seguin said. “It pops in my head from time to time. It’s something that I’ll look back on once my career’s done and it’s just kind of unfortunate. I think it’ll be harder as the years go on.”

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If nothing else, the lost Olympians hope they can serve as a reminder to the hockey world to never let this happen again.

“It’s your dream to be in the NHL, but above that is representing Canada at a best-on-best tournament, and I was never able to do that,” Hall said. “There’s a whole generation of guys that weren’t able to. Hopefully, they don’t make that mistake again, because we belong at the Olympics. Hockey fans deserve to see best on best. It’s good for the game and good for everybody.”

— The Athletic’s Joe Smith contributed to this story.

(Top photo: Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP via Getty Images)