A little bit of Kings news this morning saw two members of the NHL roster selected to preliminary rosters for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Forward Adrian Kempe was named to Team Sweden while forward Kevin Fiala was selected to Team Switzerland. Today’s announcement saw all 12 participating nations announce six players who will be on the final rosters in Italy this winter. Not exactly surprising on either front. Both players were always locks to make their respective rosters, you just didn’t know how it would play out with regards to these first six players being named. Manufactured news really, but hey, nice to see Kempe and Fiala thought of among the elite players with their respective nations.
For Fiala, this will be his first experience of best-on-best international competition. He has participated in the IIHF World Championships on seven different occasions, winning three silver medals. Fiala and Switzerland advanced to the gold-medal game both this past season in 2025 and last season in 2024, with Fiala being named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player during the 2024 edition, as his team finished second on both occasions. The World Championships is one thing and Switzerland has better participation than most countries, with Fiala indicating during the season that there is conversation between key Swiss players to get the group together whenever possible for those events. The Olympics, though, is a time when every country participating will have their best guys. With the NHL on pause, it’s the best of the best and Fiala said he was looking forward to that opportunity.
“I would love to play in those tournaments and next year is the Olympics, so it’s very exciting,” Fiala said, back in February. “For me, it [would be] my first time going, so very happy, very exciting to represent my country to play in the Olympics. That’s a dream come true. It’s still far away, injuries, you hope everything works out for everybody, but of course we are excited to get the best team possible. We’re such a small country, so in World Championships we try to get the best possible team, even there, but it’s not possible most of the time because of the playoffs. We’ve talked about it when we got the release that we are allowed to go, every NHL guy, so we’re very excited.”
Congrats to Kevin Fiala on being selected to the preliminary roster for @SwissIceHockey at the 2026 Winter Olympics! 🇨🇭👑 pic.twitter.com/EeKfHRYalT
For Kempe, this will be his second best-on-best international event. Kempe skated with Team Sweden in February’s 4 Nations Faceoff and scored a goal in the tournament opener against Team Canada. Sweden won one of its three games played and ultimately did not qualify for the championship game. Kempe individually played pretty well, certainly well enough to be among the first six players named when he was not on that list last time around, being added later in the team selection process. Despite not advancing to the final game, Kempe had a really good experience with Team Sweden, enjoying the experience to compete at the highest level, alongside some of the best players in the NHL.
“Fun, good experience,” Kempe reflected back. “Hard to know what to expect when you go into a tournament like that, with everything going on around the rink and what type of game everything’s going to be. High paced games, physical, maybe more physical than I expected it to be. It was a fun tournament to play in. Really good experience.”
The tournament will begin on Wednesday, February 11, running through the gold-medal game on Sunday, February 22, with the NHL pausing its regular-season schedule to allow players to participate. Fiala and Switzerland will play in Group A alongside Canada, Czechia and France. Kempe and Sweden will play in Group B alongside Finland, Slovakia and Italy. All 12 participating teams will advance to a single-elimination, knockout tournament to determine the medalists.
Congrats to Adrian Kempe on being selected to the preliminary roster for @Trekronorse at the 2026 Winter Olympics! 🇸🇪🧃 pic.twitter.com/EFbBXDV6Dt
