2026 Olympic
Hockey
Italy has no NHL players on its Olympic team, but its coach believes. "Anything can happen." Manan Vatsyanyana / Getty Images
The only team that will arrive at next month’s Milan Cortina Olympics without an NHL player on its roster is Italy, but the hosts aren’t planning to wave the white flag in the face of more accomplished competition.
There were eight Canadian-born players included among the 25-man roster unveiled Tuesday, plus two Americans, one Swede and one Brit. However, each of those players is a dual Italian citizen and has previously represented the country in some capacity.
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The Italian federation could have sought NHL players with family heritage and looked to stretch the IIHF’s eligibility rules to produce a roster dotted with more recognizable names. There were discussions with senior NHL executives about that possibility as far back as 2024, according to league sources, but ultimately the team elected to draw from the pool of players who have already been carrying the country’s flag, including earning promotion back to the top level of the IIHF World Hockey Championship last spring.
“For me, it was clear already after last season,” Italy coach Jukka Jalonen told The Athletic. “I actually told players after the World Championship in May that we don’t invite any NHL players. It wouldn’t be fair for the guys who have played for Italy all of their life and some double-passport guys who have played for years. If someone from NHL would come to represent Italy, we didn’t need that before. If they’ve never played for an Italian club team or national team, it wouldn’t be fair.
“For us, it’s not like we only want to win a medal; it’s a little bit different competition for us.”
Underdogs though they may be, the Italians have chosen to remain true to themselves heading into their first Olympic appearance since hosting the 2006 tournament in Turin. They finished 11th out of 12 teams there with three losses and two ties.
Italy’s biggest import this time around is actually Jalonen, who coached his native Finland to Olympic gold at the Beijing Games four years ago. The 63-year-old also has three World Championship titles and a World Juniors gold on his extensive resume and was initially contacted by Italian officials in 2024 to help recruit a Finnish coach before ultimately putting his own name forward for the job.
“Hockey, it’s in my blood,” he said.
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This challenge is unique from those that came before it. The Italians will face Sweden, Finland and Slovakia in Pool B play — opponents carrying 25, 24 and seven NHL players, respectively.
By contrast, Italy only has one player currently affiliated with the world’s top hockey league, and 21-year-old goaltender Damian Clara — a second-round pick of the Anaheim Ducks in 2023 — is now on loan to Brynäs in Sweden. Fifteen players on the Italian roster currently play out of the Austrian-led ICE Hockey League, while others are employed by club teams in Switzerland, Germany and Czechia.
The roster features grizzled international team players with 100-plus games of experience wearing Italian colors, like 35-year-old defenseman Thomas Larkin and 33-year-old forward Diego Kostner, and also a trio of 21-year-old forwards: Tommaso De Luca, Alessandro Segafredo and Tommy Purdeller.
On paper, anyway, they will be big underdogs in every game they play.
“Of course, it’s a different kind of challenge for us because we are playing actually against NHL players,” said Jalonen. “The difference will be pretty huge.”
They are still far more established as a hockey nation than China, which hosted the 2022 Olympics. That Chinese team lost the four games it played in Beijing by a cumulative score of 23-4 despite recruiting 14 North Americans and a Russian and not facing any active NHL players as opponents.
The bar has been set much higher for Italy in 2026. Jalonen says he’s been “positively surprised” by how professional the setup is among the country’s team staff and sees a potential path to a quarterfinal appearance because of the tournament format.
“For us, it’s a great system actually,” Jalonen said. “You can lose all of those group-stage games — three games in four days — (and) you can still advance to a qualification game. It’s a fourth game, and if you will win that game, any team that will win that qualification game will go into the quarterfinal. One win at the right time and you will be there in the top eight.
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“That will be our game — that fourth game in the tournament. For sure, we will be underdogs in that game, but in one game, anything can happen. Of course, we have to play extremely well, but in that game we can beat anybody.”
Truth be told, they have nothing to lose as the 18th-ranked nation by the IIHF.
Jalonen was in attendance for the test event played at Santagiulia Arena in Milan earlier this month and will gather his players for a training camp that commences a week before the NHLers even board a flight to Europe. Italy will play an exhibition game against Germany on Feb. 4 and then spend a week at the main Olympic venue getting acclimated before opening the tournament against Sweden on Feb. 11.
“I think we can maybe surprise somebody how well we can play together as a team,” said Jalonen. “Five guys together, five guys (focused on) defense. We won’t be an easy team to beat.
“When we go on the ice, we want to win any game against anybody. We want to make our country proud — being able to represent Italy and play with a big heart and good energy. No matter what the score is, we don’t want to quit, and we want to play hard until the last buzzer.”
Chris Johnston is a senior writer covering the NHL for The Athletic. He has two decades of experience as an NHL Insider, having appeared on Hockey Night in Canada and the NHL Network before joining TSN in 2021. He currently hosts the “Chris Johnston Show” on the Steve Dangle Podcast Network. He’s written previously for the Toronto Star, Sportsnet and The Canadian Press. Follow Chris on Twitter @reporterchris
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