{"id":180595,"date":"2026-02-16T21:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T21:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180595\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T21:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T21:24:10","slug":"damian-claras-stepped-up-for-italy-but-is-still-a-few-steps-away-from-being-an-nhler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180595\/","title":{"rendered":"Damian Clara\u2019s stepped up for Italy, but is still a few steps away from being an NHLer"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the exciting stories from the men\u2019s hockey tournament at the 2026 Winter Olympics has been fun to watch, but might still be a little way away from the big time.<\/p>\n

Italy <\/a>goaltender Damian Clara has caught the attention of everyone by doing his best to give the host nation a chance against Sweden<\/a>. In that first game against the Swedes, the Anaheim Ducks<\/a> prospect turned away 46 shots before going down with an injury, with Azzure only losing 5-2. It\u2019s certainly a feel-good story for an athlete who entered the tournament as a relative unknown.<\/p>\n

On Monday\u2019s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE<\/a>, Steve Peters explains to Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton how Clara has been great in Milan, but still has work to do in order to be considered a contender to make it to the NHL.<\/p>\n

Steve Peters: You\u2019re always looking for that star [in the Olympics]. That star, that\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, this is a guy\u2026 he should be in the NHL.\u2019 I\u2019m telling you, every time there\u2019s a big national tournament like this, somebody steps up and is like, \u2018Oh, my gosh, this guy\u2019s not in the NHL? He should be.\u2019 For me, it\u2019s that Clara kid, that goaltender for Italy. He\u2019s 6\u20198\u2033, or whatever the hell he is\u2026again, you\u2019ve got to go back and look at the underlying numbers. How has this player played through his career? How has this player played leading up to the Olympics? <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re facing a team like Canada, U.S., or the Swedes, or the Finns that are so much better, there\u2019s no pressure. There\u2019s no stress. There\u2019s just go out and play. \u2026 For a goaltender with nothing to lose, just go kick it. Clara gave up [three], but he was still the best player in the game. So, I do want people to temper their opinions in the Olympics over that two-week span of, \u2018Hey, this player or that player was really, really, we should see him in the NHL.\u2019 Because two weeks of running on high adrenaline can be different than what you\u2019re gonna be able to do for the remainder of your career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the exciting stories from the men\u2019s hockey tournament at the 2026 Winter Olympics has been fun…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-180595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}