‘Hug it out?’ How NHL teammates moved past gold-medal Olympic rivalry for Stanley Cup run

LAS VEGAS — Jaccob Slavin’s first day back at practice in Carolina after the Olympics didn’t go quite as planned.

The U.S. and Carolina Hurricanes defenseman’s idea was to put the gold medal game in the rearview mirror by making a peace gesture to Hurricanes teammate and Canada forward Seth Jarvis.

“I saw him. I tried to give him a hug. And he was like, ‘Not yet. Not yet. Give me one more day.’ I was like, ‘Alright. That’s fine,’” Slavin recalled with a laugh this week. “So next day, we hugged it out. All in good fun, though. There was no poking fun or anything like that.”

Not sure “good fun” is how Jarvis remembers it.

“He came in wearing his gold medal into the dressing room, and it set off a lot of emotions for me,” Jarvis said with a chuckle. “So I needed more time.”

Slavin does admit it, by the way. Entering Carolina’s first team meeting after the Olympic break, the gold medal was hanging from his neck.

Ouch.

Jack Eichel’s face turned serious when asked this week if he enjoyed rubbing it in or making jokes with the three Golden Knights teammates — Mitch Marner, Mark Stone and Shea Theodore — who were on the losing side of Team USA’s overtime win in Milan over Team Canada.

“I didn’t really, no,” Eichel said. “I have so much respect for those guys. You know, they’re three of my best buddies, too. We spend a lot of time away from (the rink) together. Our wives are friends — they’re really close. If it were the other way around, and they had won, I would assume they would have acted the same way.

“It was a great game, obviously. I was really fortunate to be on the right side of it, but if the roles were reversed, I’m sure they would show me the same sort of respect. We’re all competitors and we all want to win.”

Marner appreciates how Eichel handled it. They all tried to park the Olympic gold medal game and move on.

“I think maybe it’s a respect thing,” Marner said this week. “That game was probably the biggest game of our careers — obviously, one that it sucks to lose. But one of us were going to be losers, and I think whoever did win would realize that we weren’t going to push it over the other guy’s head and make jokes about it. Everyone’s been great at that.”

“It’s definitely different,’’ Theodore said Thursday about walking back into the Knights dressing room a few days after losing to Eichel and Noah Hanifin in the gold medal game. “I think it would have been the same way had that game ended differently. We’re all respectful guys. It was a big game. Sometimes you get some bounces, and sometimes you don’t. Good on them for winning. Obviously, we wished it had gone the other way.

“But they’re awesome guys. Couldn’t happen to better guys.”

The way Stone sees it, there’s no reason for Eichel to rub it in anyway.

“We’re even,” he said with a smile. “We won at 4 Nations. They won at Olympics. So we’re 1-1.

“No, he’s one of my best friends. So it’s like, I’m happy for him. I’d rather it not be at the expense of us (Team Canada). But I am really happy for him. All the success that he has, I’m happy for him. I’m sure it’s (the) same if you ask Jarvis about Slavin. I’m sure he’s happy for him. But it sucks (that) it comes at the expense of us. That’s hockey.”

Jarvis said he and Slavin have parked the Olympic gold medal game.

“Exactly, we never brought it up again,” Jarvis said. “It was a great experience. We’ll leave it where it was. And you move on.”

Slavin said it was pretty seamless to go from Olympic rivals to NHL brothers again.

“The Olympics are every four years. You’re with a group of guys for a short amount of time, and you build a bond that will last forever,” Slavin said. “But then, you step back into the NHL world, where me and Jarvee have been teammates for a number of years. I’ve seen him grow up in this league. He’s a brother to me, and we know each other so well.

“You’re on the same team. You’re wearing the same colors. And nationality kind of goes out the window.”

Plenty has been said and written about how either Eichel and Noah Hanifin or Slavin will achieve the rare Olympic gold medal and Stanley Cup in the same year, as Drew Doughty did in 2014 and Jonathan Toews, Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith did in 2010, among others.

But the flip side to that is how the Team Canada guys in this Stanley Cup Final have a chance to flush away that gold medal loss by going out and winning the greatest of all pro sports trophies.

“Definitely,” said Marner. “But I try to just stay in the moment — stay in the heat of things. There’s still a lot of work to do. I try not to envision that too much and just focus on the next game and wait until it happens.”

Just don’t call it a redemption Cup. The Olympics and the Stanley Cup are different experiences, regardless of what happened in Milan.

“Yeah, I don’t think of it as redemption, really,” Stone said. “That was probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me (the Olympics). Unfortunately, it went the way it went. But no, I don’t look at this as redemption. I come into a season in September with the expectation that we’re going to have a good opportunity to compete for the Stanley Cup, especially playing here. And this year is no different.”

Theodore separates the quest for the Cup from the Olympics, too. It’s not about redemption.

“I don’t think we’re thinking about it like that at all,” Theodore said. “We obviously want to win, and it’s a great opportunity.”

Between this, the Olympics, the 4 Nations and the 2023 Stanley Cup win, Theodore and Stone have played a lot of important games over the past three years.

“It’s fun,” Stone said. “Yeah, there’s nerves and pressure, but I find this time of year the most enjoyable time of year, the most fun, I think that’s why we do it.”