Billy Heyen
There is no Russian hockey team at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
From an on-ice perspective, it’s the only negative of this year’s return to best-on-best and having NHL players at the Olympics for the first time since 2014.
Russia would’ve had one of the best teams in the tournament.
The Athletic actually asked Russian coach Igor Larinov who he would’ve picked for the team, and it puts into perspective the strength of the group that won’t get to play.
This is the forward group Larinov suggested:
Ovechkin clearly would’ve gotten tons of attention as this team’s leader, and as the NHL’s all-time leader in goals scored.
But there is a lot of up and coming young talent, too, around the veterans Ovechkin, Kucherov, Malkin and Panarin.
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Defensively, Larinov picked this group:
Goalie would’ve been a strength, too, with Andrei Vasilevskiy and Igor Shesterkin.
According to the same article from The Athletic, Russia would’ve had a 44.7% chance of medaling, and a 12.2% chance at gold.
Instead, the tournament will take place without the Russian players, who will get a break from their NHL action and watch, if they choose, from home.
Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
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