Familiarity key for Canada, USA in Olympic openers, Bylsma says

NHL players are competing at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, the first time in 12 years that they’ve been on this global stage. In order to provide an inside look at the experience, NHL.com has enlisted former Olympic players, coaches and others around the game to share their insights. Today, Dan Bylsma, the coach of Team USA at the 2014 Sochi Games.

For players and coaches, that first game in an Olympic tournament comes fast.

In the case of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, players were competing in NHL games just last week. Now they’re across an ocean and six time zones away, maybe more.

It’s a quick turnaround. And not just for the players.

I can tell you from my experience in the 2014 Sochi Olympics that it’s tough on the coaches too.

Here you are, barely removed from a Stanley Cup Playoff race, and suddenly you have a collection of players who don’t normally play together. In our case with Team USA, yeah, some guys knew each other from their days with the USA Hockey National Team Development Program and might jell right away together.

Then again, they might not.

The reality is, you only have two or three days of practice before your first game. Sometimes things don’t click right away. And the clock ticks quickly on you to find a way to make sure they do.

As a coach, you lack a bit of confidence in that aspect heading into a tournament like this. I know we, as a staff, did in 2014.

How would the team come out of the gates? What was going to work and what wouldn’t? We were going to find out quickly.

In that regard, coaches like Team USA’s Mike Sullivan and Team Canada’s Jon Cooper have an advantage heading into the first game for their respective teams Thursday.

It’s called roster familiarity, thanks to the 4 Nations Face-Off last February.

If you scan the rosters of both teams closely, you’ll see the majority of players competing in Italy were part of 4 Nations. They’re familiar with the systems the coaching staffs of both nations will try to implement. Both staffs had the chance to jig around line combos in that event. They already have an idea of what the personnel will look like on their respective power plays and penalty kills.

The fact that both teams played so well in that tournament -- it took overtime of the title game to determine a champion, with Canada winning 3-2 on Connor McDavid’s goal -- was an indication that various aspects were clicking for both those teams.

All these things are so important in an event where every game matters.

We saw on Day 1 of the competition Wednesday just how volatile an Olympic tournament can be. Team Slovakia defeated Team Finland 4-1, which certainly made a statement in the tournament opener. That was followed up by Team Italy hanging in against Team Sweden for much of the game before falling 5-2.

Team Canada opens against Team Czechia on Thursday (10:40 a.m. ET; Peacock, USA, ICI Tele, CBC Gem, RDS2, CBC). Team USA then faces Team Latvia (3:10 p.m. ET; Peacock, USA, ICI TOU.TV, CBC Gem, SN, RDS).

Preliminary round games are meaningful from the get-go. Even if you play teams that are underdogs, seedings in the playoff round are so important. You don’t want to play one of the powers in the quarterfinals. In a winner-take-all elimination game, medal hopes can fade fast.

That’s why the teams that succeeded in 4 Nations like the U.S. and Canada have the stage set to hit the ground running in this tournament. Because coming together quickly is an intangible that simply can not be measured.

Or undervalued.