Coming off of yet another Four Nations Faceoff disappointment but an IIHF World Championship win, Team U.S.A. stands the chance to define itself as one of the leading hockey strengths on the international stage, that is, if they manage to bag a gold in the 2026 Winter Olympics. And, according to the GM Bill Guerin, he and the team are set on the same; as long as certain star players are not bogged down by injury, this is presumably a reference to none other than Matthew Tkachuk.

Ah, the Matthew Tkachuk Four Nations face-off injury, probably one of the prime villains in this year’s NHL, and while Tkachuk definitely didn’t let it get the better of him, he still managed to make some big moves and when he wasn’t doing that, he was chirping away on the sidelines while enroute to Stanley Cup glory, it may still, however, affect his position on Team U.S.A. for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 this February.

In a recent interview, Bill Guerin, the Team U.S.A. GM and former Olympic gold medalist, spoke about how the team U.S.A roster is being put together prior to the Olympics. Initially 6 names were selected, all belonging to players who appeared in the 4 Nations Face Off; these were Jack Eichel (Vegas Golden Knights), Auston Matthews (Toronto Maple Leafs), Brady Tkachuk (Ottawa Senators), Matthew Tkachuk (Florida Panthers), and defensemen Charlie McAvoy (Boston Bruins) and Quinn Hughes (Vancouver Canucks). However, Guerin couldn’t ignore the fact that Tkachuk is still paying the price for the lower body injury he sustained in the tournament.

“I think we’re very happy with the way the guys performed at the 4 Nations,” Guerin said, adding, “The buy-in was incredible. We can start there, but we have to account for injuries and things like that. Everybody might not be available. We don’t know. So we have to go through the whole thing again knowing that we have a good foundation.” Since Tkachuk is the only player with a known injury on that roster, it seems like he isn’t yet 100% recovered, and this could affect the Team USA lineup in February. However, the possibility doesn’t frighten Guerin, who is dead set on bringing back the gold.

Pressure on Matthew Tkachuk as current GM Bill Guerin says Team USA “have to win” 2026 Olympics

It’s true that the last time Team USA secured an Olympic gold was back in 1996, when Guerin was on the team. Though the now GM knows what it takes to make the team succeed, he also knows what went into the team failing, as he played through the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, where team USA secured a silver, and also competed at the 1998 Nagano Olympics and 2006 Torino Olympics, where the team didn’t place.

However, Guerin sees this as a benefit, stating, “I’ve had a big win in 1996, but there was also some disappointment, so I know, in my mind, what went wrong in tournaments we didn’t succeed in.” It takes a fine balance of knowing what went right and what went wrong to put together an Olympic-level team, so maybe Guerin is onto something. He certainly seems sure of it.

“We have to win,” Guerin said with reference to this coming February in Italy. “We have to win another one of these. It’s been since 1996. We just have to find a way.” But a large part of this weight is upon the shoulder of Matthew Tkachuk and considering he’s still recovering from that 4 Nations Face Off injury, perhaps he shouldn’t be holding this weight alone!