Team USA Won Olympic Gold. Then Its Stars Started Asking for NHL Trades
Updated September 2, 2026
Updated September 2, 2026
Team USA’s Olympic gold medal may have done more than end a 46-year wait.
It may also have given some of America's biggest NHL stars a reminder of what winning feels like.
Since the United States won men’s hockey gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Dylan Larkin, Brady Tkachuk and Connor Hellebuyck have all requested trades from the only NHL organizations they had ever played for.
Three players. Three longtime franchise cornerstones. Three trade requests within months of winning Olympic gold.
And there is another interesting layer to the story: two of those three played for Canadian teams, while fellow Team USA star Quinn Hughes had already engineered an exit from another Canadian organization before the Olympics.
Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.
But there is enough here to ask the question.
Dylan Larkin provides the strongest evidence that the Olympic experience mattered.
The Detroit Red Wings captain returned home from Milan in February after winning gold and openly talked about the effect the experience had on him.
“Just winning and being able to celebrate that, getting a taste of it,” Larkin said, explaining that it had motivated him “to hopefully win more in my career.”
A few months later, he asked Detroit for a trade.
Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman confirmed in June that Larkin’s agent contacted him shortly after the season and informed him that the captain wanted out. Larkin has played his entire NHL career in Detroit, but the Red Wings have now missed the playoffs for 10 consecutive seasons. He has played just five NHL playoff games, all the way back in his rookie season.
There is no proof that winning Olympic gold caused Larkin's trade request.
But it is difficult to completely dismiss the sequence. Larkin experienced winning on hockey's biggest international stage, talked publicly about wanting more of it, returned to another unsuccessful season in Detroit and then asked for a change.
Brady Tkachuk followed a similar path.
The Ottawa Senators captain won Olympic gold alongside Larkin in February. After the NHL season ended, Tkachuk requested a trade, according to Senators GM Steve Staios.
Ottawa ultimately sent him to the Florida Panthers.
And not just any Panthers team.
Tkachuk joined his brother and fellow Team USA forward Matthew Tkachuk in Florida, an organization that has spent the past several seasons competing at the very top of the NHL.
At his introductory press conference, Brady spoke about Florida's unusually close group and how everything within the organization was done collectively.
The contrast is difficult to miss.
Tkachuk spent eight seasons in Ottawa and never advanced beyond the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He then moved directly into one of the NHL's most established winning environments.
Then came Connor Hellebuyck.
On August 27, the three-time Vezina Trophy winner publicly confirmed that he wants to leave the Winnipeg Jets. Hellebuyck revealed that he had privately requested a trade several months earlier and now believes moving on is the best option for himself and his family.
Hellebuyck had just been Team USA’s starting goaltender during its Olympic triumph.
His situation also gives this story another dimension.
After Winnipeg missed the 2026 playoffs, Hellebuyck openly questioned whether the Jets could put the necessary pieces around him to win a Stanley Cup.
“Can you get the pieces that you need? Will the players come?” Hellebuyck asked at his end-of-season media availability.
He acknowledged that he had made Winnipeg his home, before adding that much of the NHL does not necessarily view the city the same way.
That brings us to an uncomfortable but legitimate question.
Three of Team USA’s biggest stars have now either wanted out of, or declined to commit their long-term future to, Canadian NHL organizations. Vancouver are probably the team farthest from competing. Winnipeg won the President's Trophy just a few years ago and Ottawa reached the playoffs last year.
Hughes needs an important asterisk.
His situation happened before the Olympics, not after them.
Vancouver traded Hughes to Minnesota in December 2025 after the Canucks were informed that it was “highly unlikely” their captain would sign another contract with the franchise. Vancouver president Jim Rutherford also acknowledged that getting Hughes geographically closer to his brothers and family was part of the situation.
Hughes then won Olympic gold as a member of the Wild.
So this isn't a case of the Olympics making another player leave Canada. But it does add to a broader trend worth examining. For an elite American player on an unsuccessful Canadian team, there are potentially several considerations.
There is the enormous scrutiny associated with playing in Canada's hockey markets. There can be family and geographic considerations. In certain cities, attracting other elite players can also be difficult — something Hellebuyck himself has now raised publicly.
And ultimately there is winning.
No Canadian-based franchise has won the Stanley Cup since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.
None of that means American players do not want to play in Canada.
But when an American superstar reaches a point where he can exert more control over his career, the question becomes interesting: If the team isn't winning, what is keeping him there?
There is also a rather obvious precedent.
Matthew Tkachuk informed the Calgary Flames in 2022 that he would not sign a long-term contract with the organization.
Calgary traded him to Florida, where Tkachuk immediately committed to an eight-year contract.
The move transformed his career.
Florida became a perennial Stanley Cup contender, and Tkachuk became one of the league's most prominent postseason players.
Four years later, his brother Brady has followed him from a Canadian franchise to South Florida.
Again, every situation is different. But from the perspective of another star contemplating his future, the Tkachuk example is hard to ignore.
Then there is Zach Werenski.
The Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman was another major part of Team USA's Olympic championship and, after the NHL season, questions emerged about whether he wanted to remain with Columbus long term.
Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell acknowledged that the organization needed clarity about Werenski's future.
But Werenski ultimately went the other way. “I want to win and I want to do that in Columbus,” he said while reaffirming his commitment to the Blue Jackets. That matters.
Werenski experienced the same Olympic success. He returned to another NHL organization that has struggled to consistently make the playoffs. But rather than deciding he needed to leave to win, he decided he wanted to help build a winner where he already was.
There probably wasn't a conversation inside the Team USA locker room where players started planning their NHL exits.
And there is no evidence that Olympic gold directly caused any of these trade requests.
But imagine the experience.
For several weeks, players such as Larkin, Hellebuyck and Tkachuk were surrounded by Matthews, Eichel, the Hughes brothers, Werenski and some of the best American hockey players in the world.
Then they returned to NHL organizations where winning the Stanley Cup looked considerably further away. For Larkin, we know the experience affected him. He literally described it as "getting a taste of winning and wanting more".
Maybe the most interesting part of this story isn't that several Americans want out of Canadian cities. Maybe it isn't even that three Team USA players requested trades after the Olympics. Maybe it is something much simpler.
Once you've experienced winning, mediocrity becomes a lot harder to accept.
