New Year’s Eve Olympic hockey roster deadline gives contenders more time for tough decisions

By Canadian Press on December 4, 2025.

Every week, Sweden has a new men’s hockey roster for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.

General manager Josef Boumedienne, assistant Alexander Steen, coach Sam Hallam and staff get on a call and piece it together, alongside other players to keep a close eye on.

“We have a good feel for what we’re looking for and what we’ve seen,” Boumedienne said. “It keeps us up to speed and keeps it fresh in our minds.”

This time around, they have time for four more versions before the Dec. 31 roster deadline, and of course only one will come to fruition. A year ago, the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland had to pick players by the start of December for the 4 Nations Face-Off, and getting to wait until New Year’s Eve could be a huge benefit for the tournament that’s slated to begin Feb. 11.

“We’d love for (it to be) the day before,” U.S. GM Bill Guerin told The Associated Press by phone this week. “But there’s so much more that goes into it, so I like that we have an extra month and we’ll just use that time to consider all our options and then we make our decisions just like we did last time.”

Some decisions have already been made, as all 12 participating countries had to name their first six players in June. Those were mostly gimmes, like Canada picking Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon and the U.S. selecting Jack Eichel and Brady and Matthew Tkachuk.

The majority of the North American and Swedish and Finnish teams will be carbon copies from the 4 Nations, an NHL-run tournament this past February that gives them a head start over the rest of the competition, especially since the last time the planet’s best players all competed in a worldwide tournament was the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.

“It was a great learning experience for everyone involved,” Boumedienne said. “You build trust and you learn to know a lot about the characters and you learn to know a lot about yourself as well, playing in that high-pressure situation.”

Of course, there will be changes: some by choice and others not. Finland will not have two-time Stanley Cup-winning center Aleksander Barkov after he tore his right ACL in Florida Panthers training camp, and the (technically) defending Olympic champions have to make up for his absence by committee.

“We all know when you lose a guy like Barkov, on and off the ice, there’s no replacement,” said Finland GM Jere Lehtinen, who was also in charge of remaking his national team roster in early 2022 that won gold in Beijing after the NHL pulled out of the Games at the eleventh hour. “There’s times you’re missing your captain and a big guy and then everybody collectively picks up a little bit.”

After losing to Canada in overtime at the 4 Nations, the U.S. could tweak the roster with some younger talent in the aim of getting that one goal that might be needed in single-elimination play in Milan. Dallas’ Jason Robertson leads all American scorers so far this season, Montreal’s Cole Caufield and Detroit’s Alex DeBrincat are point-a-game producers and nothing is guaranteed for them or any of the players on the bubble.

“We’re making decisions; we’re not having tryouts,” Guerin said. “This isn’t pee-wee tryouts, so we have to make decisions not just based on play but play plus role plus chemistry plus buy-in, fit. All that stuff goes into it. It’s not just, ‘Oh, he’s having a good year and we’ll take him.’”

Management making the final calls have to weigh body of work versus how players are currently performing, the latter of which put 19-year-old Macklin Celebrini and 20-year-old Connor Bedard on Canada’s radar. Impressive rookie Jesper Wallstedt may force Sweden to consider him over older, more experienced goaltenders.

Every country is doing that balancing act.

“You have a bigger view how they’ve played and what kind of games they’ve played (in) and have they played playoffs and how far they have played,” Lehtinen said. “But the main thing is how they’re playing right now.”

Canada assistant Bruce Cassidy, whose day job is coach of the Vegas Golden Knights, has talked to some of his players who are Olympic candidates and has not sensed the anxiety seeping in, even if he believes it exists around the league.

“The Canada and U.S., for example, there’s probably 10, 12 guys on the bubble that it’s going through their head every night, ‘Oh, I wonder who’s here tonight,’” Cassidy said after practice Thursday. “It’s human nature. I don’t know how you don’t put it in your head.”

One of those bubble players for the U.S. is Vegas defenseman Noah Hanifin, who missed the first month because of injury and would have been in danger of not making it if there had been an earlier deadline.

“Just trying to play my game and help our team win and just compete, work hard,” Hanifin said. “There’s a lot of tough decisions to make. There’s so much talent. There’s so many good guys that are capable of playing on that team.”

An additional benefit is two extra roster spots at the Olympics compared to the 4 Nations, allowing everyone to bring 14 instead of 13 forwards and eight, not seven, defensemen, along with the usual three goalies. Each game scouted this season brings some big decisions on who fill those spots closer.

“With the staff that I have, there’s a lot of experience here and a lot of years in the league and we know the players that we’re looking at and we know them fairly well,” Guerin said. “So, if there are changes that are going to be made, they come with time and effort and watching these guys. It’s not just a guess.”

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AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL

Stephen Whyno, The Associated Press