The biggest story from the quarterfinals of the Olympic men’s hockey tournament between Canada and Czechia was the missed call in the third period for too many men on the ice. The Czechs had eight players on the ice when Ondrej Palat put the Czechs up 3-2.

After the game, Canadian star Connor McDavid was disappointed that the Canadian players didn’t see what happened. According to Ryan Rishaug of TSN, McDavid stated the following:

“I’m upset we didn’t see it either,” McDavid said. “but everybody’s on the bench watching the game, and none of us saw it, so refs didn’t see it, nobody saw – it seemed like, Glad that it didn’t cost us our tournament, with that being said we definitely gotta be more aware of what’s going on out there.”

Now, there are reports that there was one Canadian player who did see what happened. According to James Duthie of TSN, he did speak to one player who admitted there were too many men on the ice. Duthie did not mention who the player was in his X.

Now we are hearing from scoutingtherefs.com, who the player was who saw that the Czechs had too many men on the ice. It was allegedly Nathan MacKinnon. In this report, MacKinnon was asked if he was aware and had the following response:

“Yeah. The refs didn’t though. It’s all good.”

TSN’s Pierre LeBrun was able too confirm that MacKinnon saw something.

This response is even more baffling. If MacKinnon even had any suspicion that there were too many players on the ice, why in the world did he not go directly to Canadian coach Jon Cooper or the referees? Why wasn’t he screaming at the top of his lungs, “too many men.”

Not wearing the C making sense

With Sidney Crosby out of the game with an injury, MacKinnon had the opportunity to provIde Team Canada with much needed leadership but apparently did not do anything. For him to say, “it’s all good,” it is ok now, but it was not at the time.

Hockey fans might be surprised that it is Cale Makar, who is the Canadian assistant captain on the Olympic team, and not MacKinnon. Makar has played 475 fewer NHL games than his Avalanche teammate.

It could also explain why MacKinnon has not been the Avalanche captain. Colorado’s captain has been Gabriel Landeskog since 2012.