NHL
2026 Olympic
Hockey
For the first time in 12 years, NHL players are heading to the Olympics. David Kirouac / Imagn Images and Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP via Getty Images
At some point over the last month, the NHL season started to feel more like a preamble to the 2026 Winter Games than anything else.
Are we complaining about that? Nope! Twelve years between best-on-best at the Olympics is a long time, and what’s about to happen in Milan should be treated like a big deal — because it is.
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The Athletic’s NHL staff, accordingly, has had plenty of time to think about how it’ll all go down. Here are our picks and predictions for the men’s hockey tournament, with expert analysis and critique from senior writers Sean Gentille, Mark Lazerus and James Mirtle, analytics know-it-all Shayna Goldman and goaltending expert Jesse Granger.
Figures are rounded.
Lazerus: This is both obvious and a bit misleading. Both the Czech Republic (also known as Czechia) and Switzerland are legitimate threats to spring an upset or two in this tournament, and I’m sure everyone on staff knows this, even if only one of us had the guts to pick it (wasn’t me, alas). As a supporter of Team Chaos, I hope Lukáš Dostál prints this out and sticks it in his locker stall.
Gentille: I desperately tried to get myself to a place where I could pick Czechia, but this is still a roster with two NHL defensemen.
Granger: I genuinely think Czechia could be the third-best team in this tournament. Unfortunately for them, Canada might be the best.
Goldman: The problem is, the winner of this group comes down to a matchup between these two teams; maybe Czechia can shake things up later on, but it feels like it’s Canada’s prelim game to lose.
Mirtle: If you're on Team Chaos, you're rooting for Canada to somehow lose its first game and have to scramble the rest of the way. Feels unlikely, although there is the Jordan Binnington factor.
Gentille: Sweden is banged up enough to make this interesting — I’m legitimately disappointed that we’re not going to see Leo Carlsson — but I can’t pick against an Aleksander Barkov-less Finnish team.
Goldman: Finland still has star power without Barkov, but Sweden’s team just feels deeper.
Granger: I was one of the few who took Finland to win this group. I just love how well-rounded that roster is at every level. It has firepower up front led by Mikko Rantanen, Sebastian Aho and Roope Hintz. The blue line is strong from top to bottom, and while Juuse Saros hasn’t had stellar stats behind Nashville lately, he’s the type of athletic goalie who can steal a game.
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Mirtle: Closer to a coin flip than this, in my opinion. Never sleep on the Finns. But this could be the biggest matchup in the prelims, if a quarterfinal bye is at stake.
Lazerus: At least Latvia has the coolest uniforms.
Gentille: If the second-best team in the group were Czechia or Finland, rather than Germany …
Granger: The United States certainly got a favorable group to ease into this tournament. I wonder if it hurts them in the first knockout games, where they’ll face a more battle-tested team.
Goldman: Boring! But no other choice.
Mirtle: This group shows how much the tournament misses Russia, talent-wise. Just not a deep field overall.
Lazerus: Perhaps if Bill Guerin hadn’t left three of the top four American goal scorers at home, this would have been a closer vote.
Gentille: He did what now?
Goldman: Better to be brash than bring multiple 40-plus goal scorers — that’s how you win games!
Granger: It didn’t work out for me at 4 Nations, but I’m still picking the U.S. based on the advantage in net. If you guaranteed me Canada will play Logan Thompson in net, I’d be much more comfortable picking it to win, but I’m not sure it will.
Mirtle: The goaltending decision looms large for sure. Dom has Canada's odds as dramatically different depending on who it starts. The Connor Hellebuyck factor will be interesting, too. Does he finally break out in a big way?
Granger: The Finns might put this poll up on the wall in their dressing room.
Goldman: The fact that the USA isn’t even a lock for silver tells you what you need to know about its roster construction.
Mirtle: Someone has been watching the Swiss at worlds of late.
Lazerus: Wow. And here I thought I was being bold picking the Czechs to win bronze. The Swedish disrespect is real.
Gentille: Makes sense — when this poll was taken, Sweden’s injury situation seemed pretty dire. At the moment, though, I feel better about William Nylander, Victor Hedman and Gabriel Landeskog being ready to make an impact.
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Granger: I also thought I was going out on a limb to pick Czechia here. Seeing everyone had the same thought process reminds me of when I picked Tampa Bay to win the Cup last year. Hopefully, this goes better for the Czechs than it did for the Lightning.
Goldman: Czechia going from potential disruptor to actual competitor makes this tournament even more fun. But the fact that Sweden is actually healthier than expected definitely makes this a closer race.
Lazerus: They’re definitely the seventh-best team in these Olympics, but make no mistake, Leon Draisaitl, Moritz Seider and Philipp Grubauer absolutely can ruin someone’s tournament on any given night.
Goldman: Yep, we’re all too on the same page with Czechia to feel like a surprise, so Germany feels like the next best pick here. While it isn’t deep enough to medal yet, it could steal a big win just to shake things up.
Gentille: Switzerland’s got some high-end pieces, too. If Akira Schmid randomly pops off, things could get interesting.
Granger: I watch him nearly every day here in Las Vegas, and Schmid is playing the best hockey of his life entering these games. It's perfect timing, and it would be really cool if he and the Swiss can pull off an upset or two.
Lazerus: The Olympics can burnish reputations of longstanding greats, but they can also mint new stars. This feels like the moment Matt Boldy becomes a true household name.
Gentille: I picked the U.S. to win gold against my better judgment, then I dipped into some game theory here; Hellebuyck snapping into 2024 mode seems like the easiest route.
Granger: It’s looking like Hellebuyck won’t get the opportunity to exorcise his Stanley Cup playoff demons this season in Winnipeg, but leading the U.S. to a gold medal would go a long way toward rewriting the narrative. I say he does it.
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Goldman: I simply have a hard time betting against Sidney Crosby in what is very likely his last Olympics.
Mirtle: No Auston Matthews shows how tough a go it has been for him of late. But kudos to the Mitch Marner vote; that would certainly be something.
Lazerus: Sometimes, the obvious answer is the right one.
Gentille: I don’t mind the Nylander logic, since he seems like a good bet to play as many games as Connor McDavid, but yeah, what Laz said.
Goldman: McDavid for leading scorer, Crosby for MVP. It just feels right.
Granger: Considering there are four legitimate Canadian options on this list, and Jack Eichel is the lone American, perhaps the Canadians will spread the wealth and Eichel will be the answer. Having said that, I’m not betting against McDavid.
Lazerus: Leonardo Genoni had to be Granger.
Gentille: Dostál put up a .930 save percentage in his last nine pre-Milan games. I didn’t pick him, but I kind of wish I had.
Granger: The Dostál bandwagon I’ve been driving for two years is really starting to pick up steam. He’s really, really good. Playing behind Anaheim, he’s used to facing a barrage of high-danger shots, so he’s well-prepped to face the All-Star Canadian and/or American squads. Then there’s the history of a certain Czech goalie willing his country to a gold medal in 1998. It would be something if it repeated itself.
Goldman: I feel like this one belongs to a player on a smaller, less NHL-supported team. If Germany upsets at some point, we’re going to be looking at someone such as Seider as the reason why for his shutdown play. He obviously has broken out at the NHL level already, but this could be his moment on the big stage.
Mirtle: I picked Genoni. Laz owes me a beer if I'm right. (We all forget about this if I'm wrong.)
Lazerus: I will not stand for this Genoni erasure.
Gentille: And to think, I just bought his jersey.
Mirtle: Look, he's going to break out, but best goalie is a reach.
Goldman: Czechia probably has to go through Canada to go deep in this tournament, which means it’s Dostál against some of the top offensive forces in the world.
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