TJ Oshie says he only just rewatched the entire 2014 Sochi Olympics game vs. Russia for the first time this year: ‘I definitely looked terrible in the game’

Former Washington Capitals forward TJ Oshie might be best known for his heroics at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, leading Team USA over Russia with four goals in the shootout. But the man himself hadn’t rewatched the entire game until just this year.

“I’d just seen the clips of the goals,” Oshie revealed on an episode of the “NHL Unscripted” podcast released Aug. 7. “So me and my daughter, my nine-year-old, she’s a little athlete in the family and she wanted to watch the game. And so that’s the first time I’d ever watched the game was a couple months ago.”

Oshie didn’t feel the need to re-live one of his glory days but admitted it’s certainly one he can recall without video assistance.

“I can pretty much remember everything that happened. I’m usually not like that with games and sports,” he said. “There’s only like a few moments where like off the top of my head I can remember, unless I like watch it and then, you know, the feelings come back or the emotions or whatever it is. But that one I can just because it blew up so big. At the time I wasn’t thinking much about it. You know, you’re just playing and finish and you look at the coach to see if he wants you to go again.”

Team USA head coach Dan Bylsma did, indeed, want Oshie to go again – five times total, in fact. But after watching his 28-year-old self for the first time in 11 years, Oshie didn’t hold back on the assessment of his performance during the four periods prior to the shootout.

“I definitely looked terrible in the game, I thought for sure,” he joked. “But yeah, it was obviously a special moment in my career. I still get all the feels.”

Oshie didn’t provide any specific critiques of his own game but rather he enjoyed being in awe of some of his teammates’ talent, specifically his former Capitals teammate Brooks Orpik.

“You know what I noticed is some of the older guys that like are probably almost all now retired from the 2014 Olympics. You look at those guys and I remember them based on like the last year or two of their career and you see them out there and you’re like, ‘Oh my God.’ Like I saw, obviously I’m good buddies with Orpik. I’m like, ‘Holy, Orpy’s flying out there,’” Oshie described. “Because like at the end you have knee problems, back problems, you’re an NHL player, but you’re getting through some things to get out there and stay on the ice, you know. And I just remember some guys in the game, I was like, ‘God, they are, those guys are good.’ Like they were really good.”

Oshie spent seven seasons with the St. Louis Blues and the remaining nine years of his career with the Caps after being traded in 2015. He lifted the Stanley Cup in 2018 and assisted on 48 of Alex Ovechkin’s NHL record 897 career goals. Despite all that, the Warroad, Minnesota-native says outside of those two cities hockey fans who recognize him want to talk about Sochi.

“It actually depends on where I’m at. So, if I’m in DC, it’s all Caps stuff. You know, St. Louis, I don’t get back there very much, but that’s mostly about St. Louis stuff. Minnesota, not much,” he explained. “Any other place besides those three places, it’s all shootout. In Minnesota, they talk about high school, they talk about playing [at] North Dakota. [In] DC, they talk about the Cup, well, you talk about Ovi, mostly. And then, in St. Louis, they talk about the old days and whatever, you know, my younger years. But yeah, anywhere outside of those places, if I’m walking around like in New York, say, and a hockey fan notices me for some reason, it’s going to be about the shootout 100 percent.”

Most of those interactions, he recalled, were not about his strategy to beat Russian goalie Sergei Bobrovsky but, instead reminiscing in the early morning elations at bars, showing the game live despite the seven-hour time difference.

“What’s great is, it’s usually, ‘Man, I’ve never been to a bar at 6 am.’ And they’re like, ‘That was the best, like, most fun time at a bar,’” Oshie recounted. “That’s usually what they say, they’re like, ‘Yeah, I [had] my kid with me. We were buzzing.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s actually pretty cool.’ Maybe a reason why it stands out so much.”

His prowess from that moment onward was impressive enough that back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Matthew Tkachuk said in July that he’d pick Oshie over Wayne Gretzky in a do-or-die shootout. It’s not a bad pick considering Oshie is the fourth-best player in league history when it comes to converting in the shootout (47.1 percent).