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Steve Yzerman Lays Out Canada’s Expectations for 2026 Olympics

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Antonio Losada | Last updated Oct 20, 2025 1:29 PM ET

Four months out from the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Detroit Red Wings GM and former Olympic gold medalist Steve Yzerman knows exactly what awaits Team Canada.

In Yzerman's eyes, Canada will always face gold-or-nothing pressure when playing in the biggest international tournament; that's something that has defined every era of Canadian hockey.

The Hockey Hall of Famer and Canada's 2010 and 2014 Olympic executive director said the expectation hasn’t changed since his days assembling those gold-medal rosters.

“As it should be for Canada, anything less than the gold medal is not a successful tournament,” Yzerman told The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun. “You watch all these World Juniors, and when it’s single-game elimination, anything can happen, as we saw in 1998 when I played. We were playing really well and lost in a shootout.”

Less than 4 months to puck drop in Milan. Just over 2 months to final roster decisions. Think it’s easy to build Team Canada? Gretzky, Yzerman on the pressure of being GM of Team Canada at crunch time. My latest for ⁦@TheAthletic⁩ ⤵️ https://t.co/nfKncIxnBU
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) October 20, 2025

Yzerman, who won the gold medal as a player with the 2002 Canada squad, said the challenge facing current Team Canada GM Doug Armstrong isn’t finding talent, but rather living up to the impossible standard that comes with managing a roster stacked with NHL superstars.

“Any team that’s picked — you pick a team, I pick a team, Army picks a team — it’s going to be a good team because Canada has so many good players,” Yzerman said. “Hopefully you win, and if you don’t win, you didn’t pick the right team.”

Yzerman revealed his approach to roster building, saying that it was often a balancing act between a player’s pedigree and recent performance.

Team Canada forward Connor McDavid (97) before the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game.Winslow Townson-Imagn Images

“In times we’ve gone with earned performance, and other decisions were made based on what they’ve done in the past,” Yzerman said. “Some guys are on the team regardless of how they start. Others, you wonder if they’re the right fit or not, and we took as much time right up to the last day to make our decisions.”

So far, Canada has named its first six players to the tournament, including Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins), Connor McDavid (Edmonton Oilers), Brayden Point (Tampa Bay Lightning), Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar (Colorado Avalanche), and Sam Reinhart (Florida Panthers).

At the end of August, Hockey Canada held an orientation camp in which 42 NHL players took part, with the final roster for Milan set to be submitted by Dec. 31.

The men’s tournament will take place in February, with games scheduled between Feb. 11–22 in Milan.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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