Team Canada did not have the tournement we were hoping for. Team USA took the 2026 WJC with a thrilling overtime victory over Finland, winning back-to-back gold medals for the first time at the WJC in their team's history.
While some teams will look back at this tournament with good memories, Team Canada certainly won't
Team Canada had a rough tournament, after demolishing Finland on opening day, things just got worse and worse. A loss vs Latvia, a shaky win over Germany, before falling to USA on NYE, and never really getting their game back before the medal round, where they were knocked out by Czechia once again.
Let's take a look at the tournament and see what's next for Canada.
2026 WJC Recap: What's Next For Team Canada?
Tournament Recap:
While it was unfortunate that Canada had an early exit, this tournament delivered some thrilling games. Canada-Latvia, USA-Finland (X2), Czechia-Sweden (X2), Kazakhstan-Slovakia, and Canada-Czechia were all thrilling games, despite the early exit for Canada.
This tournament turns to Minnesota next year, where USA looks to three-peat for the first time ever.
Leafs Prospects Report:
Easton Cowan unfortunately has been taking harsh criticism for his play at the tournament, but quite honestly he wasn't that bad. Was he part of the problem for Team Canada? Maybe, but he wasn't the whole problem. He still led the team in points, and let's hope the backlash doesn't hinder his development.
Czech prospect Miroslav Holinka played a key role in his first and last WJC, earning four points and winning a bronze medal with team Czechia. Holinka made a name for himself, and may have a solid future down the line.
Team Canada Future:
Whatever that can be said about Team Canada has likely been said already, so I'll say what I think Canada should do next year.
The 2006 and 2007 groups of Canadian players is loaded, this is a gold medal or bust tournament. Whoever is in charge of picking the team next year, should take the best players available, taking future 3rd and 4th line players to play on the 3rd and 4th lines is not a good idea, and hasn't worked the past two years.
Past Canadian teams at best-on-best events had the likes of Jamie Benn, Claude Giroux, John Tavares and others, playing bottom six roles for their teams. Imagine if Team Canada took Steven Lorentz and Derek Ryan to play on their fourth line at the upcoming Four Nations Face-Off?
It's simple, take the best team, and good results will come. Good players can adjust to playing lesser roles on this team, and taking fourth-liners to play on the fourth line won't work for this team if they want gold.
We'll see in a year's time if Canada took the right team, or if another quarterfinal exit is coming.