Why The NHL’s Top American Scorers Missed The Cut

As the general manager for the U.S. national men’s hockey team, Bill Guerin’s record has been solid so far. The true test of his leadership will come next month in Italy, when the 2026 U.S. Winter Olympics hockey team takes to the ice.

Guerin’s roster is noticeably missing two of the United States’ most dangerous scorers — Jason Robertson of the Dallas Stars and Cole Caufield of the Montreal Canadiens.

Heading into Thursday’s NHL games, both Robertson and Caufield are sitting at 30 goals for the season. They’re two of just five players in the league to have reached that benchmark and their production has been no fluke. For Robertson, 26, its his fifth-straight season with 29 goals or more. He peaked at 46 goals in 2022-23 and is also tied for 10th in the NHL points race, with 62 points in 53 games.

Caufield, 25, has scored at least 23 goals in all five of his NHL seasons. His career high of 37 goals came last season. He has 54 points in 53 games this year.

As a player, Guerin saw first-hand what it takes to win, and the fine line between first and second place. He was part of the gold-medal-winning U.S. team at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey and was also a three-time Olympian who won silver in Salt Lake City in 2002.

Now in his seventh season as the general manager of the Minnesota Wild, the 55-year-old Massachusetts native first served as an assistant general manager with Team USA under the legendary Jim Johannson at the 2017 world championship. In February of 2024, Guerin was handed the keys to the team and entrusted with navigating through the 4 Nations Face-Off in February of 2025 on the road to Milano Cortina.

At their first major international test after Guerin’s appointment, the U.S. team was eliminated in the quarter-final of the 2024 world champonship in Prague by the eventual champions from Czechia, shut out 1-0. At the 4 Nations Face-off, Team USA got to overtime of the championship game before falling to Canada before snapping a 92-year drought with a gold-medal win at the 2025 worlds in May.

Though the GM duties for the 2025 worlds were handled by Nashville Predators assistant GM Jeff Kealty, Guerin had his fingerprints on the roster construction — and made it clear that players who signed on for the spring tournament would be looked upon favorably when the time came to make Olympic decisions.

The Jan. 2 announcement of the Olympic roster included 21 returnees from 4 Nations group and two new names that had been part of the world championship squad: captain Clayton Keller and sniper Tage Thompson, who scored the tournament-winning goal.

The other two new additions were defenseman Quinn Hughes, who had missed 4 Nations due to injury, and newly minted Stanley Cup champion Seth Jones.

When it became clear that Jones would the Olympics due to an injury of his own, he was replaced by another world championship participant, Jackson LaCombe. That surprised fans of the New York Rangers and Adam Fox, the 2021 Norris Trophy winner who was part of the 4 Nations roster — but whose last turn for Team USA before that came all the way back at the 2019 worlds.

Compared to many of the U.S. Olympians, Robertson also has had limited reps wearing the Stars and Stripes. He had seven points in seven games on his way to a silver medal at the 2019 world juniors and added nine points in 10 games when the U.S. claimed bronze at the 2021 men’s worlds. Also, rather than coming up through USA Hockey’s national team development program, Robertson elected to play his junior hockey in Canada, with the OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs and Niagara IceDogs.

In fairness, Robertson’s availability for the world championship has been limited since he turned pro. The tournament runs concurrently with the Stanley Cup playoffs and Robertson’s Stars are on a four-year run of consecutive playoff appearances, reaching the conference final in each of the last three years.

Caufield did come up through the USNTDP. He played for Team USA at U17s, twice at U18s and twice at world juniors, medaling at four of those five events. But even though he has been more available in the spring — the Canadiens snapped a three-year playoff drought in 2025, but went out in the first round — Caufield has also suited up just once at men’s worlds, in 2024.

It’s indisputable that Robertson and Caufield have two of the sharpest sticks in the NHL, and both have a knack for scoring clutch goals: 36 of Robertson’s 198 regular-season tallies have been game-winners, while Caufield has ended games with 30 of his 148 career goals. Both are also power-play merchants: 55 of Robertson’s goals have come with the man advantage — more than one-quarter — while Caufield is also just over 25 percent with 38. In a short Olympic tournament featuring the best players in the game, man-advantage opportunities might not come up as frequently as they do in everyday NHL play, especially as the stakes get higher.

With Thompson and Keller, Guerin has added two talents who can also put the puck in the net but whose skill-sets are arguably more well-rounded. Both are also NTDP graduates who have stepped up regularly for USA Hockey. The pair also wear letters for their NHL teams — Keller is the captain of the Utah Mammoth, and Thompson wears an ‘A’ with the Buffalo Sabres. They’re also versatile forwards who can play center or wing, while Robertson and Caufield are strictly wingers.

Keller, 27, is a three-time 30-goal scorer who counts 32 game-winners among his 212 goals. Of those 44 came on the power play, just over 20 percent. Keller has 16 goals and 50 points in 53 games this season.

Thompson, 28, also has three 30-goal seasons on his resume, topping out at 47 in 2022-23 — the highest total of any of the players in this discussion. He has 23 game-winners among his 204 goals but also feasts on the power play with 53 goals, more than 25 percent. Thompson has 28 goals and 55 points in 52 games this season.

After the three-game preliminary round, advancement in the 2026 Olympic hockey tournament will be determined by single-game elimination. The object of the game, of course, is to outscore the other team. But more than arguably any other team sport, hockey demands buy-in from full rosters playing defined roles — defending hard as well as trying to score, and knowing that one lights-out performance by a goaltender can make the difference between moving on and going home.

Team USA comes into the tournament with one of the strongest goalie trios: 2025 Hart Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck, Jake Oettinger of the Dallas Stars and Jeremy Swayman of the Boston Bruins. But only one goalie can step between the pipes at a time. Choosing the hottest hand can be a critical — and tricky — decision.

It has been 46 years since the U.S. ‘Miracle on Ice’ in Lake Placid in 1980. In 2026, Guerin has instilled the idea that it’s ‘gold or bust’ into the minds of his players.

The 2026 U.S. Winter Olympics hockey schedule begins against Latvia on Thurs, Feb. 12 at 3:10 p.m. ET.