Team Canada leaned heavily on its championship-winning experience at the 4 Nations Face-Off when selecting the roster for the Milan Cortina Olympics, naming 19 returning players Wednesday for the Games in Italy.
That includes the same eight defensemen who represented the national team last February, plus starting goaltender Jordan Binnington, who was superb in the 3-2 overtime victory over the U.S. in the championship game.
Among the 10 returning forwards are the NHL’s current top two scorers — Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon — plus six others with a Stanley Cup on their resume: Sidney Crosby, Sam Reinhart, Brad Marchand, Anthony Cirelli, Brayden Point and Mark Stone.
Mitch Marner, who assisted on McDavid’s overtime-clinching goal at 4 Nations, and Brandon Hagel are the other returnees.
“We believe this is the best team we could select,” said Team Canada GM Doug Armstrong. “There’s a lot of aspects that go into the team. You look at Hagel and Cirelli’s penalty killing — it’s exemplary in the NHL, and that’s an area that we wanted to make sure (we addressed). There’s not going to be a lot of power plays, but a power-play goal will count even higher because there’s not that many.”
Even with two extra roster spots available for February’s Olympic tournament, the debate on final roster choices among Doug Armstrong’s management staff went down to the wire. They made the biggest changes at forward — dropping Sam Bennett, Seth Jarvis and Travis Konecny from the 4 Nations roster to make room for newcomers Tom Wilson, Nick Suzuki, Bo Horvat and 19-year-old Macklin Celebrini, who stands to become the youngest men’s player ever to represent Canada at an Olympics featuring NHLers.
In goal, Logan Thompson and Darcy Kuemper earned a trip to Milan in place of Adin Hill and Samuel Montembeault.
Of particular note is the fact that Crosby and Drew Doughty will be chasing their third Olympic gold medal after winning previously with Canada in 2010 and 2014.
Full roster
Snubs
Canada has an embarrassment of riches at forward and left off some of the NHL’s most productive forwards this season: Connor Bedard (1.42 points per game), Mark Scheifele (1.22 ppg) and Wyatt Johnston (1.15 ppg), most notable among them.
Those represent breakout campaigns for Bedard and Johnston, who will almost certainly be part of Canada’s Olympic team in 2030.
The same can be said of 18-year-old defenseman Matthew Schaefer. The No. 1 pick from the 2025 NHL Draft wasn’t on anyone’s radar as a possible selection in the summer, but forced his way into the conversation with an electric start to his professional career with the New York Islanders.
“I’ll be honest with you — he wasn’t on my radar at the start of the season,” Armstrong said of Schaefer. “I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about players who didn’t make the team, but to me this is a special (exception) because he’s an 18-year-old man that we’re talking about playing at the Olympics.
“He’s a fantastic talent. He brings you out of your seat every night. He’s got maturity beyond his years, on and off the ice. I was shocked at how quickly he worked his way into our conversations.”
Evan Bouchard and Jakob Chychrun also earned strong consideration on the blue line and will be among those who could still earn a last-minute call as an injury replacement between now and the Olympic tournament.
Mackenzie Blackwood is the next man up in goal. He’s produced ridiculously strong numbers with the league-leading Colorado Avalanche: a 12-1-1 record, with a .924 save percentage and 13.8 goals saved above expected.
Surprises
The most shocking omission is Bennett, who is only months removed from winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP with the Florida Panthers.
He was a depth forward on the 4 Nations team and still managed to play a meaningful role after being scratched for the tournament’s opening game. Not only did he fight Brady Tkachuk as part of the memorable nine-second opening to the first meeting with the U.S., but he scored the goal in the championship to help Canada force overtime.
However, with Marchand and Wilson already bringing a grittier element to the lineup, management opted for depth forwards in Suzuki and Horvat, who can more easily be moved into the top six if performance or injuries necessitate it.
“Bo has a lot of the attributes we’re looking for,” Armstrong said. “We want to be able to play inside and get to the net. He played left wing with MacKinnon at the world championships last year, so he can play multiple positions for us.
“Just an all-around good 200-foot player that can touch both ends of the special teams, if needed.”
Leaving standout youngsters Bedard and Schaefer at home will be a surprise to some, but experience is something Team Canada values highly. The margin for error is razor-thin in the single-elimination Olympic format, which requires a country to win three straight must-win games to take home gold.
While Blackwood has credibly shown himself to be one of the country’s top-three goaltenders this season, he effectively got edged out by Binnington’s resume. Binnington has a big-game reputation built on last year’s 4 Nations performance, plus the Stanley Cup he helped the St. Louis Blues win in 2019 with a road victory in Game 7.
“Jordan Binnington’s resume speaks for itself,” Armstrong said. “His name never came up as a question mark. I think what everyone saw from him at the 4 Nations cemented his legacy for this tournament.”
Expectations
Anything short of a gold medal will be considered a disappointment for this team.
The bar couldn’t possibly be higher after Canada won the past four best-on-best men’s events: The 2010 and 2014 Olympics, followed by the 2016 World Cup and 2025 4 Nations tournament.
However, we are also entering a new era of international play where Team USA, in particular, poses a threat to that dominance. Beyond them, Finland, Czechia and Switzerland have had recent successes at the IIHF World Hockey Championship, while Sweden will always be considered a dangerous opponent.
On paper, no other country can match Canada’s combination of high-end talent and depth, and the team believes that Crosby represents an X-factor who still shines through at age 38.
While Crosby hasn’t declared this his final Olympic appearance, everyone in the Canadian camp knows there’s a chance this will be it for one of the sport’s all-time greats.
As much as his teammates will be chasing gold for their country, they’ll be doing everything in their power to win it for him.
