It’s been a decade since NHL players participated in the Winter Olympics, which means men's hockey fans have been deprived of seeing some of the greatest players in men's hockey history represent their country in a true best-on-best international tournament.
The likes of Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews, Leon Draisaitl, and David Pastrnak have never represented their country at the Olympics. Instead, players from European leagues have played in the Olympics, with 18-year-old Juraj Slafkovský leading the tournament in scoring in 2022, while Team Canada’s top player was Adam Tambellini, the younger brother of former Canuck Jeff Tambellini.
"I've been fortunate enough to be part of two," said Sidney Crosby to ESPN when it was announced that the NHL would once again not participate in the 2022 Olympics. "I definitely feel for the guys who have missed numerous opportunities. It's not something where it's the next year or you push it a couple of months. These are experiences of a lifetime that you don't get very many of as an athlete."
That will change at the next Olympics, as the NHL announced on Friday that an agreement has been reached to send NHL players to the 2026 Olympics.
The NHL initially pulled players out of the 2018 Olympics when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced they would no longer cover the costs and insurance expenses for players, something they do not do for other professional leagues, such as the NBA. While the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) offered to cover some of those costs, that wasn’t enough for the NHL.
As a result, the NHL has not sent players to the last two Winter Olympics after participating in the previous five.
With the NHL heading back to the Olympics in 2026, which current Canucks have a shot at participating in their first Olympics?
We’ll go country by country but we’ll be leaving off Team Canada: the Canucks only have one Canadian forward on the roster — Phil Di Giuseppe — and none of their Canadian defencemen have a shot at the Olympics.
Team USA
Quinn Hughes is a lock. He’s the frontrunner for the Norris Trophy as the best defenceman in the NHL this season and will compete with Adam Fox to be Team USA’s number one defenceman at the 2026 Olympics.
After that, things get interesting.
J.T. Miller is the highest-scoring American in the NHL this season and is just behind Auston Matthews and Matthew Tkachuk over the last five seasons. Combine that with his grit and physical game and he ought to be a lock.
The issue is that Team USA is stacked with young talent. Miller will be competing with the likes of Matthews, Tkachuk, Jack Hughes, Jack Eichel, Kyle Connor, Clayton Keller, and Matty Beniers for a spot on the roster. Will Miller still be one of the top American players in two years when he’s 32? There’s a good chance he is but it’s not a guarantee.
It’s a similar story for Thatcher Demko. There’s a lot of competition in the USA net, including Connor Hellebuyck, Jake Oettinger, Jeremy Swayman, and a wild card like Spencer Knight.
Demko ought to be one of the top-three American goaltenders in 2026 — heck, he ought to be competing with Hellebuyck to be the number one — but the competition will be tough.
Finally, there’s Brock Boeser. After coming up short his entire career, Boeser finally cracked the 30-goal mark this season and is on pace for 50 goals. If he can keep up that kind of scoring pace — or even anything close to it — he’ll make a strong argument to make the Team USA roster but, like Miller, he’ll have a lot of competition for a spot.
Team Sweden
Elias Pettersson is a lock. He currently leads all NHL Swedes in scoring this season and has already represented Sweden at two World Championships. There’s simply no doubt that he’s going.
Will he be joined by any other Swedish Canucks?
Elias Lindholm has a good shot at making it. While his scoring has tailed off from his career highs a couple of years ago, he’s still tenth among Swedish forwards in NHL scoring this season and can play a solid shutdown game, which could see him slot into the bottom-six as a checker if he’s not seen as a scorer.
That’s likely it for Swedish Canucks unless Jonathan Lekkerimäki swiftly turns into a star over the next couple of years or Nils Höglander has one hell of a breakout season. I don’t see either Tom Willander or Elias Pettersson — the defenceman — developing quickly enough to crack the roster on defence.
Czechia, Switzerland, and Latvia
Two more current Canucks are basically guaranteed to play in the Olympics for their countries and two more will depend on whether his country qualifies.
Filip Hronek will assuredly play for Czechia as one of their top defencemen, if not their number one. He leads all Czech defencemen in scoring by a wide margin and is actually second among all Czech players behind only David Pastrnak.
Likewise, Pius Suter is one of the top Swiss players in the world just by virtue of being in the NHL, so he’ll certainly be there representing Switzerland. He’s currently tied for sixth among Swiss players in scoring with Timo Meier and could be Switzerland’s second-line centre in 2026.
Then there’s Teddy Blueger, the best Latvian player in the NHL, and Arturs Silovs, the hero of Latvia’s bronze medal win at the 2023 World Championships. Both would assuredly make Latvia at the 2026 Olympics.
The trouble is that Latvia has not yet qualified. They’ll have a chance to do so in qualifying this summer, with three spots available. They’ll be competing with the likes of Slovakia, Denmark, France, and Norway for those three spots.
Russia and Belarus?
Russia and Belarus are currently barred from participating in international hockey tournaments for their war of aggression in Ukraine. In addition, the IOC has barred Russian and Belarussian athletes from the Olympics. If those bans extend into 2026, then neither country will be participating in hockey at the Olympics.
The ban affects Belarus more than Russia, as they will be unable to participate in qualifying tournaments this summer and therefore won’t be able to qualify for the 2026 Olympics even if Belarus is reinstated. That means Belarussian Canucks prospects Danila Klimovich and Nikita Tolopilo won’t be participating in the Olympics.
Even if the ban is rescinded, there’s still no guarantee that either of the Russian Canucks currently on the roster will make the team.
Ilya Mikheyev simply has too much competition on the wings — he’s 12th just among Russian wingers in NHL scoring this season. His two-way game and penalty killing give him a boost but the odds are stacked against him unless he comes on strong in the next couple of years.
As for Nikita Zadorov, his size and physical game are strong arguments in his favour and he has some international experience at two World Championships. He would definitely have a chance to make Team Russia, particularly since that’s an area of weakness for Russia overall, but he's definitely not a lock.
