Evan Bouchard is putting on a show at the Worlds and Oil Country couldn’t be more here for it. His defensive game has been near perfect throughout the tournament and he’s been logging the most minutes on Canada’s blueline night after night.
And just the other day he went out and dished a hat-trick of helpers that set up Canada’s overtime winner against Norway.
Must say, the maple leaf looks good on him. But all of this could have come sooner. Could have come in an Olympic moment for Bouchard.
Evan Bouchard is firing on all cylinders at the Worlds
Bouchard arrived at the 2026 IIHF World Championship as a first-timer at the senior level for Canada and he has been nothing short of outstanding. Through the preliminary round, he has been Canada’s most impactful defenceman leading the entire team with a plus-11 rating.
Bouch is regularly logging the most ice time on the blueline and producing at a rate we in Oil Country are so familiar with.
His first senior goal for Canada came during the game against Italy with a power play rocket in the second period that Oilers fans know well as the “Bouch Bomb.” Classic Bouchard. Then against Norway in a wild 6–5 overtime thriller, he turned in one of his best games of the tournament with three assists, nearly 27 minutes of ice time, five shots on goal and the primary helper on Mark Scheifele’s overtime winner. Canada stayed undefeated and Bouchard was pretty much the engine behind the whole thing that night.
His defensive game has been equally sharp. The criticism that has followed him throughout his career that he gives too much back, that the risk outweighs the reward, has been nowhere to be found in Switzerland. He has been thoroughly hard to play against and consistently one of the best players on the ice every single night. At the end of the preliminary round, Bouchard has already recorded six points in seven games.
Hockey Canada left Evan Bouchard off the 2026 Winter Olympic roster, announced on New Year’s Eve. He was not on the 4 Nations Face-Off team either last year. There was even talk for a while that a late callup to the Olympic roster might be coming. It never happened and Canada went to Italy without him.
So instead of a chance at a gold medal moment in Italy, he gets Switzerland in May. And Bouchard is sure making the most of it.
Bouchard’s season deserved more
And it is not just the Worlds where Bouchard has been making noise. The 2025–26 NHL regular season was the best of his career by a mile.
Bouchard finished with 95 points in 82 games (21 goals and 74 assists) both career highs. He led every defenceman in the NHL in scoring by 14 points. He posted a plus-25 rating and averaged over 24 minutes of ice time per night. Only nine defencemen in NHL history have scored more points in a season than Bouchard did this year.
And then the Norris Trophy finalists were announced. Bouchard became the first defenceman in five years to lead the position in scoring without even earning a finalist nod.
It seems the hockey scene keeps finding reasons to look past him. But Bouchard keeps finding ways to make that impossible.
Eyes on the knockouts
The quarterfinals are tomorrow and Oil Country is locked in. Canada enters as one of the favourites and Bouchard figures to be right in the middle of everything, same as he has been all tournament.
The semifinals go May 30, with the bronze and gold medal games on May 31 to close it all out in Zurich. Canada last won gold at this tournament in 2023 and after a gut-punch quarterfinal loss to Denmark in 2025, there is serious motivation to go all the way this time.
We are behind Bouchard every step of it. He has waited long enough for this. He is finally wearing the maple leaf as one of the best defencemen on the planet and he is making every moment of it count.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
