As a group of Canada’s best hockey players faceoff against the world at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Italy, perhaps the most discussed topic surrounding the Canadian men’s national team is the goaltending.
At one point, Canada was represented with the best netminders in the world, led by Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, and most recently in 2014, Carey Price. But as NHLers prepare to play in the Olympics for the first time in 12 years, goaltending is clearly the weakness for the Canadians.
On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton are joined by theScore senior NHL writer John Matisz to discuss his column on Canada’s goalie development and what are the reasons behind its decline.
John Matisz: Goaltending is very hyper-specific, very technical by nature. You’re trying to stop a puck that’s coming at you at whatever miles per hour. The way the game is played now with east-west passing, you have to have this foundation and structure in your game.
It makes sense to have some of that, but Canada, because it’s become so professionalized at young ages, has gone to such an extreme to focus on the technical aspects of the game far too early.
Read more: Why has Canada struggled to develop goaltenders?
It’s one of those things where it can get really carried away at a young age. You’ve got 10-year-olds who are shutting out teams because they’re technically sound, but five years from that moment, they’re already past their peak. Maybe they’re too short to make it anywhere, or they just tap out at a young age because they didn’t develop the other aspects: the skating, the athleticism.
Russia is a great example: Their goalies play soccer, they do gymnastics, they do other things that are adjacent to hockey in terms of working on your athleticism, but are ultimately different, and make you a better, overall athlete.
The way that Canadian hockey is set up, it’s 1) If you’re a parent, there’s no room to put your kid in other sports, and 2) Just the culture around it is so, “Oh you’re going to play baseball in the summer? Aren’t you a hockey player?” And this is we’re talking about 10-year-olds, right?
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…
