Team Canada goalie breakdown for Milano Cortina Olympics

Goaltending will be an integral part of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. To provide insight into the strengths and and weaknesses of each country’s goalies, we have borrowed a project from the Stanley Cup Playoffs and charted goals against by some of the goaltenders we will see in this tournament. Doing so allows us to see what patterns emerge that might be targeted and what areas should be avoided.

Today, Team Canada, which plays its first game of the tournament against Team Czechia on Thursday (10:40 a.m. ET; Peacock, USA, CBC Gem, CBC).

Jordan Binnington

The St. Louis Blues goalie is the presumed starter after backstopping Canada to a win in the 4 Nations Face-Off last season, despite eight wins in 32 games and an NHL career-worst .864 save percentage this season. Binnington typically is at his best when doubted, hasn’t given up a lot of low-percentage goals this season, and should benefit playing behind a Canadian defense that will be stingier and more predictable than what has fronted him in St. Louis. The big question will be whether he can flip the switch with momentum-changing saves on more dangerous chances like he did in the 4 Nations Face-Off final, because there weren’t many signs of that while tracking his last 100 goals in the NHL.

High glove might not be the default it appears: Though 24 goals over the glove stand out as the highest total on Binnington’s chart, it isn’t much worse than the 22.5 percent tracked average on the more than 8,500 goals tracked for this project since 2017. More important are the factors that led to the goals. On clean looks and breakaways, there were four goals scored high blocker compared to just two over the glove. Five of the high-glove goals came on screens and another seven on scramble plays or bounces off bodies and sticks. Binnington maintains a high-glove positioning effectively in each of his high and save stances, but like most goalies drops it while moving in his butterfly. As such, late arrivals to save spots left him throwing up an elbow rather than using his glove, which was a more common factor on the high goals over his left shoulder. One trend worth noting is a tendency to leave his glove-side shoulder behind on low-high pushes off the post, and when moving to his right, a lack of rotation that left him susceptible to against-the-grain shots high to the glove side.

East-west and quick: Creating offense with plays across the middle of the ice has been an increasingly important in creating offense for several seasons, and Binnington has handled it well for the most part, with goal totals on those plays so far this season (25 percent) and headed into the 4 Nations Face-Off last season (24 percent) only slightly worse than the 22.1 percent tracked average. But there remains a trend worth watching, and that’s how many times he’s late getting to the save spot on the other end of lateral passes. It is most notable on east-west plays above the hash marks, with a tendency to set up outside his posts increasing the distance he must travel, making it harder to get across in time when those lateral passes connect, especially when finished with quick shots and one-timers.

Screens, scrambles and rebounds: Binnington’s numbers on rebounds (15 percent, above the 11.7 percent tracked average) and broken-play bounces off legs and sticks (26 percent, almost double the tracked average of 14 percent) highlight the importance of getting to the net and disrupting sight lines. Screens may only account for 15 percent of the goals, slightly below the 15.1 percent tracked average, but they did play a role in a lot of the rebounds that led to goals, further reinforcing the importance of disrupting the vision of a goalie who still reads the play well. As for those second chances, position and technical delays in recoveries from the butterfly contributed to the high number of goals along the ice outside each pad (24), which was far more telling than the same total over his glove.

Cut middle, shoot against the grain off rush: Carrying the puck across the middle above the hash marks, rather than passing it, also produced five goals, higher than the tracked average. Four were finished with shots back against the grain, or opposite the direction the player is skating, taking advantage of Binnington’s elevation change as he moved.

Logan Thompson

The Washington Capitals goalie is having the best season by save percentage of the three Canadian goalies. He has broken through as the No. 1 for the Capitals during the past two seasons with more wins (50) than any Canadian. He plays a reactive style that may be harder to pre-scout, but still seems destined to start on the bench, so we only analyzed 50 of his 94 goals.

Create chaos, go left: Given how strong a season he is having, it’s not surprising there aren’t a lot of glaring weaknesses on Thompson’s goal chart in terms of either a location of scoring-chance type. The only number way below the tracked average was broken plays from bounces off sticks, skates and legs around the crease, which were the primary factor on 16 (32 percent) of the tracked goals, well above the 14 percent average. Not that any team wants to leave themselves relying on bounces, but given how good Thompson is reacting to open looks -- he only gave up one clean-shot goal -- getting bodies to the net to take away sightlines and produce more of them is a smart bet. Even then, he was way better than the 15.1 percent average, with two goals on screens. If there was a trend among the bounces, it came from more goals outside his left, or blocker side, pad.

East-west but still elevate: Thompson was slightly better than most even on his second-worst statistical category, with 22 percent of the goals coming on plays across the middle of the ice compared to the 22.1 percent average. His results were worse on plays completed below the hash marks, which accounted for 10 goals. Even then, it’s important to get shots up quickly because his conservative positioning almost always gives him a chance to get an outstretched pad across. Also, his flexibility usually means he also gets a glove over top of that pad, which is why so few clean plays went in along the ice.

Low-high and quick: Of eight goals where a one-timer was the primary factor, six came on pass-outs from below or near the goal line, with some catching Thompson flat along his goal line from close range, and others catching him moving out from further away.

Darcy Kuemper

Kuemper’s save percentage dropped to .900 this season with the Los Angeles Kings from the .922 last season that earned him top-three voting for the Vezina Trophy as top goalie in the NHL, but he is less than four years removed from winning the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche and plays a steady, balanced style that should fit behind Canada’s defense. Still, with Binnington and Thompson ahead on this depth chart, we only tracked 50 of his 90 goals this season.

Work off his posts: One-timers were a primary factor on 14 percent of the goals scored on Kuemper, almost double the average of 7.4 percent, and more than half came on low-high passes from near or below the goal line. Add five goals off sharp-angle passes below the bottom of the face-off circles and it makes sense to force Kuemper to work in and out of his posts using a variety of techniques. A tendency to slide into his posts laterally -- and sometimes drop into a reverse-VH against the post -- with his skate blade against the post, also creates a short-side gap that has been exploited this season.

Push right in scrambles: Kuemper plays a balanced, technically sound game so there weren’t a lot of extremes in his goal chart, and his patience during plays he can read and establish position for is illustrated in low totals over the blocker and glove, as well as just one clean-shot goal against. One of two scoring-chance types that produced below average results, however, was broken plays (24 percent, well above the 14 percent average). While there is often little a goalie can do on some of the bounces that produce these chances, it was interesting to note how often he was left with nothing but a diving stick attempt on plays to his right. It’s reflected in the 10 goals along the ice outside his right pad. While the total isn’t a lot lower to the other side, he wasn’t left in desperation mode as often to that side.

Side-to-side and slide: The other scoring-chance category that was below expected was on passes and plays across the middle of the ice at 30 percent compared to the 22.2 percent tracked average. Again, there weren’t any glaring tendencies, and sometimes it’s just about the quality of the chance, but Kuemper did sometimes get squared up and outside his posts on downhill plays into the corner, leaving him out of the net and with a big rotation to make before pushing for a pass back into the middle. There also was a tendency to slide on initial downhill passes around the hash marks, which makes it harder to get back to the middle when a quick pass the other way was executed.