With the Winter Olympics now underway, the NHL population has scattered to the four corners of the world, aside from the lucky ones representing each for their respective countries in Milan Cortina this month.
The Bruins players were officially underway on Wednesday with Henri Jokiharju part of a Team Finland group that struggled big time I losing to Team Slovakia, even as Joonas Korpisalo didn’t see any action playing backup to Nashville netminder Juuse Saros. Still not exactly sure what Jokiharju was doing backing off Juraj Slafkovsky on Slovakia’s first goal and essentially covering the backdoor while allowing Slafkovsky an easy, open lane to the front of the net.
SLAFKOVSKY WHAT AN ABSOLUTE BEAUTY pic.twitter.com/rawdoiTKDG
— Shawn (@ShawnF1998) February 11, 2026
But with the Olympics now in session, it’s a natural time to start wondering how exactly things should look in future Olympic seasons where the NHL is sending its best and brightest away while taking a two-plus-week hiatus during the regular season. First things first, the NHL needs to do something about the compacted 82-game schedule in an Olympic year, which basically means teams are playing the same number of games in a schedule that essentially had three weeks shaved off for the international competition.
“Every team is feeling it, and every team is going through it,” admitted Nashville Predators defender Roman Josi, who is in Milan skating for Team Finland. “But we all wanted it. All the players wanted to go back to the Olympics. I think it’s definitely worth it, but I don’t think we’ll be too unhappy to go back to the regular schedule next year, either.”
Of course, the players wanted it. Just look at the pride in the eyes of a guy like Brad Marchand getting to participate in his first Olympics for Team Canada as a 35-year-old well into the back end of his Hall of Fame-level hockey career.
"It's the ultimate dream"
— Kacy Hintz (@KacyHintz) December 31, 2025
Ahead of Brad Marchand's 1K ceremony last night he spoke about the thought of playing in the Olympics. He said he got a taste in the 2014 Olympic camp and that's been a driving force of his training ever since. Now he'll get his shot in Italy pic.twitter.com/0CssOUYUh8
The injury situation, though, has been dire with every team, and it’s heightened the level of attrition for all teams, particularly for a Florida Panthers crew that has played more hockey than anybody else over the last three seasons after winning back-to-back Stanley Cup titles. The Bruins saw Pavel Zacha suffer an injury just prior to the Olympic break that ended up costing him his participation with Czechia.
“Everybody’s going through it,” said Charlie McAvoy, who has endured his share of injuries in addition to being one of the Bruins players participating in the Olympics for Team USA. “It’s a compacted schedule, it’s not easy, but it’s the draw that everybody has.”
It begs the question as to whether the NHL needs to scale back the schedule during Olympic seasons every four years if there is going to be consistent NHL participation in the tournament. Some have floated a 76-game schedule during those seasons that would be much more manageable from an injury and wear-and-tear standpoint rather than the gauntlet the NHL is currently engaging in with their prime player assets.
Making these guys play 82 games in an Olympic year is a fucking joke. Guy’s are getting injured every game. 76 games should be the number. 4 games with everyone in your conference and 1 game with teams in the other conference. Go back to 1-8 seeding in those years because it’s…
— Paul Bissonnette (@BizNasty2point0) February 3, 2026
Beyond that, there is also the simple competitive and entertainment standpoint for the league as well. There have been some obvious evenings when teams simply didn’t have a snowball’s chance from a competitive standpoint because the players had zero opportunity for physical recovery due to the unrelenting schedule.
Just look at the low point of the season for the Boston Bruins, where they dropped four-of-five games on a homestand headed into the NHL holiday break, where they played five games in eight days during that arduous stretch.
“They were just mentally sharper than us today. It’s not just tonight. It’s been creeping in a little bit and we just have to find a way here [to get out of it] before the break. [The streakiness] is all around the league. Everyone has gone through stretches, [but] you need to find a way to get out of it right away and be more consistent,” said Marco Sturm when the B’s were in the midst of that stretch after a 6-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators. “We want to be consistent with the schedule and travel and all that kind of stuff. You are going to make some mental mistakes, but you want [your overall play] to be at one level. We’re still trying to find that level, but I’ve seen it around the league…it’s not just us.”
Sturm is absolutely correct, which was an important perspective to keep when a team, like the Bruins at the time, was spiraling into the absolute nadir of their season.
Throughout the league, there have been singular blowout games where it was clear one of the teams had been waylaid by the truncated schedule, and every team –aside from a Colorado Avalanche team that has dominated wire-to-wire -- has been riding a roller coaster of winning and losing streakiness based on the whims of the grueling workload.
None of this even takes into account that NHL teams – which don’t practice nearly as much as they did 10-20 years ago even under normal circumstances – are barely practicing during the season because of the schedule as well.
It all adds up to a very challenging pressure cooker for each of the 32 NHL teams that didn’t always add up to the greatest product on the ice for fans over the NHL’s first five months with exhausted players sometimes simply going through the motions. One will never hear the term “load management” from anybody in the NHL like the way it’s become part of the fabric of the NBA over the years, but the overwhelming workload this year has been a storyline for this entire hockey season for NHL players and teams.
The Bruins will be getting back to work starting Feb. 18 when they resume practice while the Olympic Games are still ongoing in Italy, and it will be a light on-ice crew given the nine Black and Gold players (David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Jeremy Swayman, Elias Lindholm, Hampus Lindholm, Henri Jokiharju, Joonas Korpisalo, Dans Locmelis) participating in the Games.
So the current, hard-earned break is a brief one, even for those that aren’t participating in the Olympics, and the NHL decision-makers have at least come to terms with the Olympic hiatus, even as the league’s owners get no real benefit from the international tournament.
"I think it's going to be great," said Gary Bettman of the Olympic participation prior to the start of this NHL regular season. "It's important to our players. That's why we're doing it.
"Listen, there are lots of reasons that I'm never thrilled about taking a couple of weeks break in the season. Changes a lot of things. But on balance, I think it'll be worth it, A) for the exposure, B) for the fan engagement, but C) and most importantly, this is and has always been very important to our players. And that's why we're doing this."
Is it likely that the NHL is going to do anything to address the obvious complications from the compacted NHL schedule during Olympic seasons?
It’s doubtful NHL owners would agree to sacrifice 5-7 games from the NHL regular season – and the ticket revenue earned from those dates on the regular season docket – for an Olympic tournament that holds no tangible economic benefit for them. That is exactly the kind of situation that would need to be bargained for during the next CBA battle between the NHL and the NHLPA that is years down the road.
At this point, this season simply gives everybody a window into the competitive challenges that NHL teams, and the players, are going to face every four years if the Olympic participation continues to be a priority for the players. At least it will be a known element the next time around, but there are no easy solutions for some pretty obvious challenges the entire NHL has faced this season.
