Evan Bouchard and Zach Hyman snubbed by Team Canada for the 2026 Olympics

With the Team Canada roster all announced, the debate that will rage from now until the next Olympics is which players were snubbed by their respective countries, resulting in a change in the outcome for their team.

The Oilers currently have two players confirmed to be going, with Connor McDavid playing for Team Canada and Leon Draisaitl playing for Team Germany. Mattias Ekholm is expected to make Team Sweden when they announce their roster as well.

However, two notable Edmonton Oilers players did not make it to Team Canada, and it really is head-scratching when looking at some of the players that were chosen. Like, how can two of the best players on a team that has made it to two Stanley Cup Finals in a row not make it?

Evan Bouchard

This is probably the most egregious snub, in my opinion. Evan Bouchard is the second-highest Canadian defender in scoring, with 37 points in 40 games.

Bouchard has shown that he steps up when the games matter, with 81 points in 75 games. That 1.080 points per game is second among Canadian defenders of all time, second only to Bobby Orr. His six game-winning goals are the highest among active defencemen, and only three away from the all-time Canadian high of eight.

Bouchard’s defence gets ragged on, especially given his penchant for fairly egregious blunders, but that kind of offence can’t be ignored.

You have eight roster spots on the blueline, which means you have two extra defencemen who don’t necessarily need to play. Why not include an offensive game breaker like Bouchard? Sure, you already have Cale Makar, but that’s like saying why bring McDavid when you have Sidney Crosby? Fun fact: you can have both.

Instead, Team Canada ran back the same eight defencemen from the 4 Nations. You know, that roster that when Makar and Shea Theodore couldn’t play, the team didn’t have a substitute for the power play? But surely that won’t happen again, right?

You have to think that he is likely on the standby list, but still, choosing someone like Travis Sanheim over him when you already have Josh Morrissey, Devon Toews, and Colton Parayko to fulfill the defensive needs is a choice.

Zach Hyman

At one point, Zach Hyman was thought to be almost a lock for the 4 Nations last year and then the Olympics, given his gritty game and undeniable chemistry with McDavid.

However, a cold start and then injury last year derailed that hope, and then starting this season on the IR made him even more of an afterthought.

But Hyman is back now, and by all accounts is playing as well as usual. He has 11 goals and 21 points in 20 games, a 43-goal, 82-point pace. He has only gone pointless in seven games, so it isn’t like he has been boosted by one or two hot streaks either.

Those 11 goals and 21 points put him fourth in goals and fifth among all Canadian left wingers, despite having played almost half the games. Add in his grittiness and his ability in front of the net on the power play (something that Sam Reinhart was not great at in the 4 Nations), and you start to wonder if having both Anthony Cirelli and Bo Horvat on the team is needed over Hyman.

As I mentioned above, there is still the potential that either or both Bouchard and Hyman eventually make it in the event of injuries, as we have seen with Martin St. Louis in 2014. But not including them initially still seems like an oversight.

Although, giving those two a long break prior to gearing up for the stretch run and then the subsequent playoffs might actually be beneficial for the Oilers (if we want to look at things in a glass half-full kind of way).