The Game Turned Late
Jack Eichel and Noah Hanifin will be on one side of the ice Tuesday night. Jaccob Slavin will be on the other. All three are about to become part of an exclusive group, but only one will complete the rarest double in American hockey.
Back in February, the three teammates celebrated on the ice in Milan, ending the Americans' 46-year Olympic gold medal drought. Now they meet as opponents in the 2026 Stanley Cup Final. When the series ends, at least one will have added a Stanley Cup to that Olympic gold.
The matchup already has enough history; the job is to keep the reading list shorter than the tension.
The Small Details Added Up
The math is simple but the club is tiny. Only eight players in history have won both an Olympic gold medal and a Stanley Cup in the same year. Only one of them has been American.
Ken Morrow did it eighteen years before NHL players were even eligible for the Olympics. He was a defenseman on the 1980 Miracle on Ice team, then signed with the New York Islanders and immediately became part of a dynasty that won four straight Cups. For forty-six years, he has been the only American to pull off the double in the same calendar year. That changes now.
The Table Looks Different
Drew Doughty and Jeff Carter were the most recent to accomplish the feat, winning gold with Canada in 2014 before leading the Los Angeles Kings to a championship. The list reads like a who-is-who of Hall of Famers, though the main reason it's so short is practical: NHL players have only participated in six Olympic tournaments since 1998, with a twelve-year gap between 2014 and 2026.
Between Eichel, Hanifin and Slavin, someone will make more American hockey history. The question is simply which one.