Should Connor McDavid taken a break after the 2026 Winter Olympics?

For Connor McDavid, the Olympics were surely a heartbreak on par with placing all your hopes and dreams on a single after work beer only to accidently leave it in the freezer for too long while trying to get it extra fresh. Unlike the rest of us mortals though, McDavid has to wait four years in order to quench his thirst.

McDavid has the benefit of being able to throw himself back into the regular season to help distract himself from the near miss at the Olympics. but is that the best choice? McDavid didn’t even have time to clean the tiramisu out of his moustache before having to play Anaheim, only to turn around and have to play the Los Angeles Kings the very next night. The question is, should McDavid have taken off this back-to-back, or even just went back to Edmonton and skipped this California tour altogether?

The Olympics take a toll on the body that few can understand. While McDavid appears to have come back from Milan in good physical shape (but for what seems to be an insignificant hand injury), you really never know what the future can hold. I think that playing for a gold medal, playing to bring glory to your country, playing with and against some of the best players of the game, pushes these athletes further than anything else in their life.

We have seen in the past what playing in the Olympics can do to some of the best athletes in the game and in turn to their respective NHL clubs. Here are some of the most unfortunate instances of NHL players’ injury at the Olympics.

History of NHL injuries at the Olympics

While McDavid wasn’t seriously injured at the Milan Olympics the high intensity games must surely have taken a toll on him. As much as we all despise the owners for their role in keeping NHL players out of the Olympics, they most certainly have a point. Here are some of the instances when NHL players were injured while playing for their country in the Olympics.

John Tavares

John Tavares had put up 66 points in 59 games and was third in NHL scoring when the 2014 Sochi Olympic games started. Tavares tore his MCL in a game against Latvia and missed the rest of the regular season. The New York Islanders were firmly planted in 26th place at the time so it wasn’t like it sank their season, but it might have cost Tavares some personal accolades.

That year Henrik Zetterberg and Mats Zuccarello were also injured in the Olympics, and that’s why Derek Roy and Maxim Noreau led Team Canada at the 2018 Olympics with seven points each.

Joe Sakic

Joe Sakic also injured his MCL at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, the first Olympics to allow NHL players to play. Team Canada ended up losing one of the most nail-biting shootouts of all time against Dominic Hasek (who was later mistaken for an animatronic brick wall) and the Czechs in the semi-finals.

After the Olympics, the Colorado Avalanche, who up until that point were 28–13–15 and third in the league, went 10–13–1, and for that second half of the season were 21st in the league. They still made the playoffs but lost in the first round to the Oilers.

Patrick Roy actually skipped the 2002 Olympics because of how the Avalanche performed after the ’98 Olympics, which to me is a severe overreaction and it cost him a gold medal but to each their own.

Dominik Hasek

At the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Hasek suffered a season ending injury in the first game of the tournament. Hasek was playing for the Ottawa Senators at that point and in 2006 they were a certified plough horse. Hasek was having an outstanding season, posting a 2.09 GAA and a .925 Sv%, one of the frontrunners for the Vezina to be sure.

The Senators had one of the most dominant lines in all of hockey with Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley, and Jason Spezza so they were still able glide into the playoffs, but they ended up losing in the second round. Hasek was 41 at the time, but we have seen what a dramatic effect he could have on the outcome of a game. If he had played in the playoffs, maybe Canada’s Cup drought wouldn’t be quite so depressing.

What’s to come for McDavid and the Oilers

It’s clear that the Olympics can take an incredible toll on the body.

McDavid has yet to show any slowing down though as he put up two points in his first game back against the Ducks in a 6–5 loss, and two points against the Kings in a 8–1 win. You certainly wonder if he will put the pedal to the metal down the stretch and go absolutely ballistic to help relieve the anger of so narrowly missing out on a gold medal.

While I think that, if anyone could give 110% for the rest of the season AND THEN 150% in the playoffs, it’s McDavid, there are limits to what the human body can do. I worry that he may push himself so hard that come the end of the season he ends up hurting himself, god forbid.

While the majority of the players got nearly three full weeks off, McDavid was essentially full tilt full time, pushing his body to the limit. I’m no doctor but it seems like continuously pushing yourself for that long could very well lead to either an injury or fatigue down the stretch.

The problem is, and I’m sure this is all McDavid saw when coming back to Edmonton, is an Oilers team who was only two points away from being outside the playoffs looking in—a team that doesn’t really have the luxury of missing their best player. The Pacific Division, and frankly the West in general, is absolute dog water so I think they should be able to sneak in without playing perfect hockey, but I doubt that’s how they see it.

Edmonton is in the midst of a California tour with three big games against Pacific Division rivals, two of which are knocking on the door to unseat Edmonton from their playoff spot. Sooooooooo ya, realistically speaking, a guy like McDavid was never missing these games, but you just hope it doesn’t catch up with him later in the season.