Monday Rundown: Jamie Benn Talks Sochi & Sidney Crosby, Updated Stars Olympic Leaderboard, Mikko Rantanen Injury Reports, and a Local Hockey Celebrity
If there were a day called "Mondown," then it would ryhme with "rundown," but there isn't, so we're stuck with this
The Dallas Stars play an NHL game this week. Two of them, in fact! And with the trade deadline fast approaching, there’s every chance the big news won’t just be happening on game days.
So without further ado, let’s kick off the first Monday after the Olympic Games by getting back to the Monday rundown, starting with a conversation with the Stars captain a couple days ago.
Jamie Benn on Sidney Crosby and Sochi in 2014
Last Saturday, on the day before the gold medal game, I asked Jamie Benn a couple of questions about his own Olympic experience, when he won gold with Team Canada back in 2014.
Until Sunday, 2014 was the last USA/Canada Olympic matchup with NHLers. And that one was also a fantastic game, with Benn’s goal holding up as the game-winner in a tight, 1-0 semifinal.
(Also, how much bigger does that 2014 ice surface look compared to what we saw over the last two weeks?)
One thing that I didn’t know about Sochi is that, according to Benn, the players were allowed to leave the Olympic Village and go out into the surrounding city—though I’d imagine it wasn’t quite as picturesque as the streets of Milan.
Not every player chose to do so, though.
“I didn’t leave the village, personally,” Benn said. “Some guys did. I was there for hockey, and to win.”1
According to Benn, the Olympic Village experience inside the compound in 2014 was pretty similar to what Team USA and most other teams experienced this year in Italy. And that included sharing a room, in most cases.
“We all had roommates,” Benn said. “Same as this year. The older guys had their own rooms, and pretty much everyone else had their roommates.”
For his part, the 24-year-old Benn roomed with veteran forward Rick Nash, who was playing for the Rangers by the time 2014 rolled around.
“It was nice to have somebody there who’s been through it,” Benn said. “He’s a great hockey player. Good leader. So it was nice to be with him.”
Most of Benn’s teammates on that 2014 Canada group weren’t on this year’s squad, but there are two players from the 2026 group who did play for Canada the last time NHLers were at the Olympics: Drew Doughty, and some kid named Sidney Crosby.
Canada took home the gold by beating Sweden in their final game with goals by Chris Kunitz, Jonathan Toews, and Crosby in a game that featured its own version of 2026’s British Hockey Commentator:
Anyway, what came to mind for Benn as he watched Crosby in the 2026 games after playing alongside him in that one 12 years ago?
“I see a lot of the same things,” Benn said of Crosby. “He’s been doing it for over 20 years now. He’s just a special player, special person. He always finds a way to step up in big moments. You saw it in 2010. You saw it in 2014. And it wouldn’t surprise me if you see it tomorrow, too.”
Sadly, Crosby wasn’t able to play in the gold medal match to fulfill Benn’s prediction, but one suspects Benn would have been proven right, had Crosby been able to do so.
Mikko Rantanen, Lower-Body Something
If you start the below video at 27:03, you’ll hear Elliotte Friedman talking about Mikko Rantanen’s injury, which he suffered while playing against Canada in the quartfinal game.
“Rantanen got hurt here. I think he’s gonna miss some time. I don’t believe it’s season-ending, but I think he’s gonna miss some time.”
-Elliotte Friedman, on the 32 Thoughts Podcast
2/22/26
In that Canada game, Rantanen had a collision along the boards with (surprise) Tom Wilson, as Michael Dixon pointed out on Twitter the other day. Rantanen would get up after the collision, but it looked like he was in some pain after the fact.
Sure enough, Rantanen would miss the bronze medal game against Slovakia with what Finnish media reported was a lower-body injury of some kind.
We should hear some sort of update from the Stars today about Rantanen’s prognosis, but it sounds to this point like the Stars may indeed have to do without him for at least some of their remaining 25 games.
Final Dallas Stars Olympic Leaderboard
Mikko Rantanen: 2 goals, 4 assists, 18:14 in average ice time, and 19th place in scoring in the tournament overall
Miro Heiskanen: 2 goals, 3 assists, and the highest ice-time per game of any player in the entire tournament, averaging 26:24 per game
Roope Hintz: 1 goal, 3 assists, and one of four current or former Stars to score a power play goal for Finland in this tournament
Thomas Harley: 1 goal, 3 assists, and he played 19:42 per game, just 15 seconds behind Devon Toews. And almost as important, he got one day off as a tourist with his mom in Italy:
Esa Lindell: 0 goals, 3 assists, and the 5th-highest ice-time per game in the entire tournament, averaging 24:29
Radek Faksa: 0 goals, 2 assists, and the 8th-best faceoff percentage in the tournament
Jake Oettinger: Zero goals allowed on zero shots faced, a Gold Medal, and whatever this animal is that his teammates were so excited about
Hannah Bilka, Local Legend
When I was at the grocery store yesterday, I noticed a pretty cool hand-drawn sign on a sandwich board at the door:
I don’t know about you all, but I absolutely love this sort of thing.
Going grocery shopping has been one of my favorite errands2 to run for most of my adult life. There’s something so stinkin’ wholesome about participating in mundane errands as a community, sharing a confined space (and parking lot, sigh) with all manner of people, many of whose only thing in common might be their residential proximity. But just that is enough to make for a lovely 45 minutes or so perusing the shelves, weighing different heads of cauliflower, and deciding whether or not I’ve earned that bag of chips today. Because it happens with all these people who also call this place home.
We all call a place home, and we choose to make that mean something. And when someone from Home does something cool, you all celebrate it together. I’d say winning gold at the Olympics counts as cool.
Anyway, to see a grocery store, one of the remaining bastions against the spread of isolation and loneliness, go to the trouble of commissioning their store artist3 to recognize a member of the community? That was heartwarming in a very genuine sort of way.
And to know that Bilka (who absolutely does hail from Coppell) signed a photo for this particular store? I mean, come on. That’s cool. Sports at their best bring communities together, and Bilka (who was also one of three U.S. players named to the Olympic All-Star Team) and her teammates have brought a whole lot of people together, indeed. Starting with Coppell, but now throughout the country.
That’s a classic Jamie Benn answer, but he did just that, winning gold along with current teammate Matt Duchene.
Part of that probably comes from growing up in smaller town, where you’d routinely see your neighbors and friends at said grocery stores, or at least a familiar cashier. Going to the store was not unlike going to a local park, but where you didn’t get in trouble for eating things you found.
All Trader Joe’s stores have an in-house artist (or two) who make all the price tags, signs, and other artwork in the store. So to have them use valuable time just to recognize a member of the community who did something really, really cool? Well, that’s a store I don’t mind giving my business to.