Canada set to announce men’s Olympic hockey roster ahead of NHL’s return to the Games

By Canadian Press on December 31, 2025.

MINNEAPOLIS — Canadian hockey fans will learn the full list of NHL players set to compete for men’s gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics later today.

Hockey Canada is holding a press conference at 12 p.m. ET in Minneapolis — one of the world junior hockey championship host cities — to unveil its roster for February’s Milan Cortina Games in Italy.

Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Brayden Point and Sam Reinhart were already named to the squad back in June.

Canada’s brain trust led by St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong has some tough calls to make up and down the lineup, from young stars pushing for spots to battle-tested veterans desperate for another shot.

The NHL went to five straight Olympics from 1998 through 2014 before skipping the 2018 event. COVID-19 then squashed plans in 2022, but hockey’s best are finally set for a return to the world stage.

Canada won gold in Vancouver in 2010 and climbed the podium a second time four years late in Sochi, Russia.

Armstrong also led the management group that picked Canada’s entry at last February’s 4 Nations Face-Off when the country topped the United States in a thrilling final.

Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper will once again be behind the bench after leading the country at the showcase tournament that served as an Olympic appetizer.

Speaking in Vancouver on Monday, Philadelphia Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet, who will return as one of Cooper’s assistants, talked about the process of putting the roster together.

“Every guy has will and skill, right?” he said. “It’s highly skilled guys that play in the inside, highly skilled guys that can play 200 feet. That’s really the team you’re putting together. McDavid and MacKinnon on their own are just incredible players, but they care about the flag, and they play a 200-foot game. Those guys backcheck as good as anybody.

“It’s a two-week tournament. It’s (about) coming together as quickly as possible.”

Hockey Canada vice-president of hockey operations Misha Donskov, who will also serve as an assistant coach at the Olympics, said Tuesday in Minneapolis the decisions were “exceptionally difficult” when landing on the three goaltenders and 16 skaters joining the country’s original six tabbed during the Stanley Cup final.

“When you’re dealing with players at that level … every decision is hard,” said Donskov, an assistant coach at the world juniors. “When you look at the forward group, the defensive group, and then the goaltenders, they’re all hard decisions.”

— With files from Gemma Karstens-Smith in Vancouver.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 31, 2025.

Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press