The best U.S. Olympic men's hockey teams share this: a defining goalie.
Jack McCartan stood out in 1960, when the Americans won Olympic gold for the first time. It was Jim Craig for the "Miracle on Ice" in 1980. When NHL participation began in 1998, Mike Richter was the stalwart. Then Ryan Miller was a fortress at the 2010 Vancouver Games, the last time the U.S. won a medal.
Connor Hellebuyck could be next. Last year, Hellebuyck became the first American goalie to win the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP.
He also was the best primary goalie statistically at the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off, the first best-on-best men's hockey tournament in nine years (1.59 goals-against average, .932 save percentage).
Hellebuyck tells his hockey tale in a different way.
"I would probably say the underdog story," he said. "Constantly going and being an underdog and just making it work, persevering and getting through."
Hellebuyck, from outside Detroit, grew up chasing his brother, Chris (14 months older), into the basement. They strapped on roller blades. Chris, a center, practiced his shot down there. So Connor went into the net.
"It was a one-on-one," dad Chuck said. "That's how it kind of started."
Chuck remembers Connor, at age 3 or 4, plopping in front of the TV for Red Wings games: a mini goalie stick in one hand, a little baseball glove in the other.
"A lot of it was just imitating the goalie and making all their moves," said Chuck, noting that Olaf Kolzig was Connor's favorite player. "But then there was a breakaway, the goalie went down, spread out, the shot went up, and Connor went up with his arms and chest. At that point I realized he's not watching the goalie, he's watching the puck."
Hellebuyck went undrafted by the top junior leagues out of high school.
"That was kind of a pivotal moment in my career," he said. "When I missed the NAHL draft, I was kind of heartbroken. I had a moment of sadness. Then I had a moment where I knew I was going to do whatever it took to make it work."
Hellebuyck quickly proved it. He drove 12 hours by himself from Michigan to Minnesota for a tryout that eventually led to him joining the Odessa (Texas) Jackalopes of the NAHL in 2011.
The West Texas city is best known as the football-focused setting of "Friday Night Lights." Hellebuyck stayed with a billet family.
"It felt like a cool type community, that hockey almost didn't belong, that they forced it in there, and the people loved it," he said.
After one season, Hellebuyck matriculated at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, the first school to offer him a spot. He was yanked from his first start after giving up five goals in two and a half periods.
He called Joe Clark, his GM and goalie coach in Odessa (and his trusted advisor to this day).
"I said, 'The game is not as fast as I just made it out to be,'" Hellebuyck remembered. "(Clark) couldn't believe it, because I just got pulled and got scored on a lot, but really it was all the pressure I was putting on myself and expecting the game to be so much better than what it was. I was more ready, more prepared than I had given myself credit for."
It took seven games and 36 days before Hellebuyck returned to the River Hawks crease. By the end of the season, he backstopped Lowell to its first Division I Frozen Four.
"All the hardships that I had to go through early in my career were lessons learned," he said. "That's all I use them for. I didn't let them knock me down. I just kind of created a version of myself where I was just going to continue to adapt. That's how I've kind of gotten to where I am today."
Similarly, Hellebuyck's success in professional and international hockey has been hard-earned.
In 2012, he wasn't among the top 35 North American goalies ranked by NHL Central Scouting going into the draft. The Winnipeg Jets reached for him in the 5th round as the 13th goalie taken, 130th overall. He spent most of his first two pro seasons in the minors with the St. John's IceCaps and Manitoba Moose.
Once with the Winnipeg Jets, Hellebuyck sat behind or split time with Ondrej Pavelec, Michael Hutchinson and, briefly, Steve Mason before becoming the unquestioned No. 1 in 2017.
Internationally, he was the unused third goalie at his first world championship (2014, age 20, after winning the Mike Richter Award as the top NCAA D1 goalie) and at the World Cup (2016, on Team North America for players 23 and under).
At last February's 4 Nations Face-Off, he played in a top-level championship game for the first time. Hellebuyck previously tended net in the NCAA semifinals, the world championship semifinals and the NHL Western Conference Finals, all defeats.
"It's just like when you start playoffs, it's hard to sleep," he said of the 4 Nations final. "You've just got the butterflies in your stomach the entire night and leading into the next morning. It starts to casually fade off, and then once you get closer to game time, it picks back up again. That whole experience is just a wave of emotions that you have to keep under control."
Though Canada beat the U.S. 3-2 in the 4 Nations final on Connor McDavid's overtime goal, Hellebuyck was deemed "exceptional" by one outlet and graded 8/10 by another.
"It took me about three or four days to really get over that loss, because I had suppressed all those feelings for a week and a half of how cool that actually was and how bad I actually wanted to win," Hellebuyck said. "I didn't want to take an edge off my game."
Hellebuyck has saved every one of his USA jerseys. "I haven't worn that many," he quipped.
He'll get two more in Milan. A medal would go nicely with them. So, too, would a place with McCartan and Craig as America's golden men's goalies.
"(Hellebuyck) was a complete nobody when he was 18 years old, 19 years old. No one knew of him," Clark said. "He's the ultimate story."