Coming into the 2026 Winter Olympics, one of the biggest question marks hanging over gold-medal favorite Team Canada was in their own net. The country leaned on St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington to win the 4 Nations Face-Off last year, but Binnington has statistically been the worst goaltender in the NHL this season.<\/p>\n
On the flip side, the Washington Capitals\u2019 Logan Thompson has been the near opposite, dominating for a second-straight campaign with the Caps. However, according to Tampa Bay Lightning and Canada head coach Jon Cooper, Thompson was never in the running to start the nation\u2019s Olympic-opening game against Czechia on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Cooper told the AP\u2019s Stephen Whyno<\/a> that his mind was made up to put Binnington in goal, \u201cprobably about 358 days ago,\u201d referring to Canada\u2019s success in the 4 Nations tournament. Despite telling the media that he would reveal his decision about the starting goaltender the night before the game, Cooper appeared to let Binnington know he would get the nod in January, per a story relayed by FanDuel Sports Network\u2019s Andy Strickland<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cJon Cooper and Jordan Binnington met a few weeks ago at the Lightning hotel when Tampa Bay was in St. Louis,\u201d Strickland tweeted<\/a>. \u201cThe two had a great conversation, enjoyed a Guinness or two, and Cooper confirmed his belief in Jordan Binnington, who left the meeting feeling confident knowing he\u2019d be given the opportunity to be the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n To Cooper\u2019s credit, Binnington rewarded his faith with a 26-save shutout of the Czechs to put the Canadians atop Group A after their first game<\/a>. However, it\u2019s still tough to ignore just how bad Binnington has been in the NHL for the Blues compared to Thompson and even the team\u2019s third goalie, Darcy Kuemper.<\/p>\n Team Canada\u2019s three goalies during 2025-26 NHL season<\/p>\n Goaltender Logan Thompson (WSH) Darcy Kuemper (LAK) Jordan Binnington (STL) Canada opens its tournament with back-to-back games, playing the Czechs on Thursday and Switzerland on Friday. After Cooper\u2019s comments on Wednesday<\/a>, it appears likely that Thompson will make his Olympic debut against the Swiss.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say that\u2019s a safe assumption,\u201d Cooper said of two different netminders playing the two games. \u201cWe\u2019ve got three phenomenal goalies. Goalies who have a lot of hardware in their trophy case.\u201d<\/p>\n Given Binnington\u2019s performance against Czechia, the start against the Swiss could be Thompson\u2019s lone appearance in Italy. The only way for him to see more time would be for Binnington to return to more of his NHL form, or for Canada as a team to falter, leading them to play on back-to-back days again later in the tournament.<\/p>\n Thompson came into the Olympics ready for any role given to him, even if that meant filling the team\u2019s water bottles<\/a>. He was left off the 4 Nations roster last year for what some believed to be due to a frosty relationship with former Vegas Golden Knights head coaches Bruce Cassidy and Pete DeBoer<\/a>, who are on Cooper\u2019s staff.<\/p>\n After playing Switzerland on Friday, the Canadians will play their final group game against France on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming into the 2026 Winter Olympics, one of the biggest question marks hanging over gold-medal favorite Team Canada…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-465762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRecord
\nGAA
\nSV%
\nGSAE<\/a><\/p>\n
\n19-16-4
\n2.45
\n.912
\n18.4<\/p>\n
\n14-11-9
\n2.59
\n.900
\n2.1<\/p>\n
\n8-17-6
\n3.65
\n.864
\n-24.9<\/p>\n