Edmonton Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard has been playing some incredible hockey of late, racking up eight goals and 15 assists while firing 54 shots on goal and registering a plus/minus rating of plus-12 over the last 15 games.
Bouchard ended January with 23 points, the most in a calendar month for any Oilers defenceman since Paul Coffey scored nine times and added 18 assists in March of 1986, nearly four full decades ago.
Related: All of Evan Bouchard’s Incredible Stats in Oilers’ Win vs. Capitals
In a 6-5 overtime victory over the Washington Capitals at Rogers Place on Jan. 24, Bouchard had one of the greatest offensive performances by a defenceman in NHL history, as he became the first Edmonton defenceman to score a hat trick in 20 years, while also recording three assists and finishing the game with a plus/minus of plus-5.
Against the San Jose Sharks at home on Jan. 29, Bouchard tallied with 59 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the score at 3-3, then assisted on Connor McDavid’s winning goal in overtime to cap off a three-point night.
While he’s cranked his game up to elite levels during Edmonton’s run to the Stanley Cup Final each of the last two postseasons, Bouchard has arguably never played better in the regular season than this current stretch.
All of which has prompted debate over Bouchard’s absence from the Canadian roster that will compete in men’s hockey at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games (the opening ceremonies of the Olympics are on Feb. 6, with the men’s hockey tournament getting underway on Feb. 11).
Dreadful Defensive Play Cost Bouchard an Olympic Spot
On New Year’s Eve, Hockey Canada unveiled its men’s Olympic team that will be going for gold in Italy. The 25-player roster includes eight defencemen: Drew Doughty, Thomas Harley, Cale Makar, Josh Morrissey, Colton Parayko, Travis Sanheim, Shea Theodore, and Devon Toews.
At that time, the notion that Bouchard should be part of Team Canada was almost laughable. Even though he was the leading point-scorer among all NHL blueliners, his defensive play had been so atrocious that there was just no way the Canadian Olympic men’s hockey general manager Doug Armstrong could take the Oilers blueliner.
Between all of Bouchard’s giveaways, misreads, lapses and breakdowns, there’s already more than enough footage this season to produce a full-length video titled “How Not to Play Defence”.
What’s worse is that his blunders tend to occur during high-leverage situations that end with the puck in the back of Edmonton’s net. It’s no wonder that Bouchard had one of the worst plus/minus ratings among all defencemen in the NHL over the first month of the 2025-26 NHL schedule.
One might be able to overlook Bouchard’s misplays if they were an occasional thing, but throughout October, November, and even into December, he couldn’t go more than a week without serving up a pizza or two. If Armstrong had tuned into even just a couple Oilers games, there’s a very good chance he would have seen Bouchard commit an error so egregious that he would have decided right then and there that there’s no way he could trust this Bouchard in a winner-take-all game with the hopes and dreams of an entire nation hanging in the balance.
Bouchard Can Still Become an Olympic-Level Player
Along with his remarkable offensive output, Bouchard has been playing much better defensively over the past few weeks. He acknowledged that he needed to improve and clearly took it to heart. For that, he deserves a lot of credit.
The thing is, this isn’t the first time that Bouchard has shored up his game. He’s had previous stretches of sufficient – some might even say, good – defensive play, only to ultimately revert to his old self.
Maybe this is finally when Bouchard develops into a reliably solid defender to complement his phenomenal offensive skills. But that will only prove itself over months and years. Not a sample size of 15-20 games.
It’s very easy to be a prisoner of the moment. That happens to almost everyone. But stepping back and looking at the big picture, with recency bias removed, it’s hard to say that Bouchard should be on Team Canada.
Bouchard is only 26. Many of the greatest blueliners in hockey history took until their late 20s to really round into form, and they then maintained that level into their mid-to-late 30s. We won’t see Bouchard at the Olympics this year, but there’s certainly a chance he could be there in 2030, or even 2034.
