Jason Robertson, misunderstood nerds, and the Olympics

Let's talk about the Stars forward, Team USA, and some things to consider

To be perfectly honest, I’ve always hated Olympic roster projection stories.

Maybe that’s because I used to work at a place that force-fed roster projections for best-on-best international competition, even when NHL players weren’t going to the Olympics.

Or maybe it’s because, in my mind, the bar for an Olympic roster construction story will never be topped after Scott Burnside’s landmark piece for ESPN.com — which I re-read today because that’s how good it was.

Either way, I’ve always rolled my eyes at Olympic speculation pieces. Not because the writer or publication had the wrong idea or focus, but rather that there was no way for them to actually get it right.

It’s close to impossible to actually get in the head of an NHL GM, it’s even more difficult to decipher what happens with Olympic selection, where the rules are redefined by arbitrary values.

For the United States, for example, it’s always been a matter of grit and heart over all. The country, and I say this as an American, took too many lessons from 1980 — a plucky underdog story they made a movie about — and not enough from the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, where two of most pure American goal scorers of all time — Brett Hull and John LeClair — where allowed to cook and combined for 21 points in seven games, giving the United States it’s only international trophy in best-on-best competition.

This, of course, connects to what’s happening with the pending roster selection for Team USA at the 2026 Olympics.