Team USA's Auston Matthews will be a familiar face for many of his Olympic opponents, including his Toronto Maple Leaf teammate Oliver Ekman-Larsson.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
When Swedish defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson was preparing for the Milan Cortina Olympics, he joked he only had a few more weeks to gather intelligence on Auston Matthews.
The two are teammates on the Toronto Maple Leafs, where they battle for each other on a nightly basis. But in Milan they are on different sides of the puck. Knowing just how unstoppable Matthews can be in the NHL, it’s natural to think his Swedish teammates could benefit from an insider scouting report, no?
“Obviously, if we go up against, let’s say, Matthews, you’re probably giving them some tips right?” Ekman-Larsson said with a smile, choosing his words carefully on what is otherwise a delicate subject.
“I think that’s how it works in the hockey world.”
Players don’t like to talk about it. But make no mistake, when a guy puts on the jersey of his country, it changes his loyalties. And when it comes to the Olympics, players are dishing on their teammates.
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The NHL is already a heavily scouted, hyper-analyzed league, so there’s only so much more that can be gleaned from a teammate, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to talk.
From tendencies and weaknesses to strategies for disrupting certain players, anything is fair game. Identifying patterns and preferences that only a teammate might notice could mean the difference between scoring or preventing a goal.
Asked in an interview prior to Milan if he thinks Canada’s opponents would be tapping players for intel about his roster, Team Canada head coach Jon Cooper responded, “There’s no question.”
International hockey can play havoc with allegiances.
Like most players at the Olympics, Sweden's Oliver Ekman-Larsson will have no problem giving up some information on an NHL teammate if it helps his country succeed.Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
“Players give up trade secrets about the guys on their team who they are playing. Everybody does,” Cooper said.
“When you’re wearing your flag on your chest, everything changes.”
Cooper, who coaches the Tampa Bay Lightning, remembers how odd it felt when he was behind the bench for Canada at the 2017 IIHF World Championships.
Canada came up against Russia in the semi-finals, and Cooper all of a sudden had the job of trying to counter Nikita Kucherov and pick apart Andrei Vasilevskiy’s game.
“Now you’re doing prescouts to beat your goaltender,” Cooper said.
“And I guarantee you Kuch and Vasy probably heard things about us. Everybody’s trying to win.”
Canada won the game 4-2.
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Nor is Cooper above that kind of subterfuge himself. He knows other coaches are doing it.
“If it’s a gold medal game and I have to give up a tendency, if something happens, it’s got to happen,” Cooper said.
As a guy with 700 NHL games and five different teams on his résumé, Pierre-Édouard Bellemare has a played alongside quite a few players in Milan.
The captain of France’s Olympic squad came into the tournament eager to offer advice to his younger French teammates. But Bellemare, who played two seasons with the Colorado Avalanche from 2019-21, laughed at the notion he might have a secret way to neutralize Nathan MacKinnon or Cale Makar.
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His team has other priorities it must handle first, he said.
“There is already enough for us to focus on; what we have to do, what we have to comprehend,” he said following one of France’s practices.
“Then we can start talking about, ‘All right, MacKinnon is going to be coming with this.’”
Matthews said it’s “always kind of weird and interesting going up against teammates,” but didn’t let on if he’s compiled any info on Canada’s Mitch Marner or Sweden’s William Nylander, who he’s played with in Toronto.
It’s all part of the game, Ekman-Larsson said.
“Overall you talk about players, you talk about the team, how they play and what they want to do, and you’re trying to kind of get in the way,” he said.
As far as Matthews goes, Ekman-Larsson has nothing but respect for his Maple Leaf teammate, who he calls “an unbelievable two-way centre.”
Any tips he has for his Swedish team on how to thwart the U.S. captain are, admittedly, somewhat limited.
“It’s not much,” Ekman-Larsson said. “But if you can find something.”
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