Outside the NHL, shootouts have provided memorable hockey moments at the Olympics

When the NHL instituted the shootout in 2005 to decide games instead of ties, it came after the American Hockey League experimented with it the previous season.

It was a new wrinkle in North America, but the shootout had been a big part of international hockey at the Olympics long before that. And it has delivered more memorable moments over the past decade or so.

Peter Forsberg’s 1994 golden goal became a stamp in Sweden

While the NHL has kept the shootout contained to the regular season, the International Ice Hockey Federation — like FIFA in soccer — has used it at the Olympics and world championships, even to decide gold medals.

Canada and Sweden got to a shootout in the final of the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, and Peter Forsberg tried a move he recalled countryman Kent Nilsson scoring with at worlds in ’89. He beat Corey Hirsch, Tommy Salo stopped Paul Kariya, and the Swedes were Olympic hockey champions for the first time.

Forsberg’s move sliding the puck under Hirsch, as captured by AP photographer Al Behrman, was immortalized on a stamp in Sweden the following year.

Dominik Hasek was the star and Marc Crawford a goat in Nagano in 1998

Nagano in 1998 was the first Olympics with NHL player participation, and Canada went in as a heavy favorite. Dominik Hasek prevented that in backstopping the underdog Czech Republic to gold.

Hasek turned aside 29 of 30 shots through regulation and overtime in the semifinal matchup against fellow Hall of Famer Patrick Roy. Then he stopped all five Canada skaters in the shootout — Theo Fleury, Ray Bourque, Joe Nieuwendyk, Eric Lindros and Brendan Shanahan — and Robert Reichel scored for the Czechs.

Unbelievably absent from Canada’s lineup was Wayne Gretzky, who roughly four years earlier passed Gordie Howe for the most goals in NHL history. Coach Marc Crawford chose younger players over Gretzky, who was 37 at the time and in his second-to-last season, and he may be more remembered for that than guiding Colorado to the Stanley Cup in 1996.

T.J. Oshie earned the nickname ‘T.J. Sochi’ for his US heroics in 2014

From the time he entered the NHL in 2008 until Olympic rosters were submitted in late 2013, T.J. Oshie had one of the best shootout percentages of any player in the league. USA Hockey knew that and made sure to bring him to the 2014 Games in Sochi.

When the U.S. and host Russia went to a shootout in the preliminary around with Vladimir Putin, among others, in attendance, Oshie didn’t just get one attempt. He got six.

Coach Dan Bylsma kept sending Oshie over the boards against Sergei Bobrovsky. Oshie scored on four of his attempts to give the U.S. the victory and was nicknamed “T.J. Sochi” as he made the rounds on the “Today” show and became one of the faces of the sport to fans who perhaps had never seen an NHL game.

US women beat rival Canada in the final at the 2018 Olympics

The U.S. nearly knocked off Canada to win women’s hockey gold in Sochi. A shot aimed for the empty net that would have sealed it in the final hit the post, Canada tied it and won in overtime.

Four years later, the rivals met again with the gold medal on the line in Pyeongchang, South Korea. NHL players were not participating for the first time since 1994 and the women’s tournament was the main event.

The teams were tied at 2 at the end of regulation and through overtime. In the sixth round of the shootout, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson triple-deked Canada goalie Shannon Szabados out of the crease to score the golden goal for the U.S., which won after threatening to boycott the previous year’s world championships and fought to secure more pay and a better contract for women’s hockey players.

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