National Pride. Bragging Rights. Best-on-Best. That’s what the Olympics are all about. 

The 2026 Winter Games in Italy are less than eight months away and on Monday, June 16, 2025, the 12 countries who will be competing for glory in ice hockey each announced their first six players as part of their preliminary rosters. 

The deadline to announce their full 25-man rosters isn’t until December 31st, so there’s plenty of time for the rest of the names to be decided upon and revealed. But Monday was a start. So, let’s dive in, see who was selected and who might currently be the favorite to win it all. 

First things first, the tournament will be played from February 11, 2026, to February 22, 2026, and once again, Russia will not be participating as part of the ongoing sanctions against the country due to their war with Ukraine. 

Also, for anybody expecting the on-ice chaos that was present during Four Nations (does three fights in nine seconds sound familiar?), just know that fighting is strictly prohibited during Olympic hockey games. And while we’re at it, the games in Italy will be played on NHL-regulation-sized ice, rather than the bigger, standard international ice sheets. 

Now, onto the reveals…Here are each of the players who were announced on Monday and the teams they’ll be competing for.

Canada: Sidney Crosby, Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Brayden Point, Sam Reinhart

United States: Jack Eichel, Quinn Hughes, Auston Matthews, Charlie McAvoy, Brady Tkachuk, Matthew Tkachuk (Bill Guerin spoke earlier today)

Sweden: Rasmus Dahlin, Victor Hedman, Adrian Kempe, Gabriel Landeskog, William Nylander, Lucas Raymond

Switzerland: Kevin Fiala, Nico Hischier, Roman Josi, Timo Meier, Nino Niederreiter, Jonas Siegenthaler

Finland: Sebastian Aho, Aleksander Barkov, Miro Heiskanen, Esa Lindell, Mikko Rantanen, Juuse Saros

Czechia: Lukas Dostal, Radko Gudas, Martin Necas, Ondrej Palat, David Pastrnak, Pavel Zacha

Denmark: Frederik Andersen, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Nikolaj Ehlers, Lars Eller, Jesper Jensen Aabo, Jonas Rondbjerg

Latvia: Rodrigo Abols, Uvis Balinskis, Zemgus Girgensons, Elvis Merzlikins, Arturs Silovs, Teodors Blugers

Slovakia: Erik Cernak, Martin Fehervary, Simon Nemec, Martin Pospisil, Juraj Slafkovsky, Tomas Tatar

France: Yohann Auvitu, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Jules Boscq, Hugo Gallet, Jordann Perret, Alexandre Texier

Germany: Leon Draisaitl, Philipp Grubauer, Lukas Reichel, Moritz Seider, Tim Stützle, Nico Sturm

Italy: Damian Clara, Diego Kostner, Thomas Larkin, Daniel Mantenuto, Tommy Purdeller, Luca Zanatta

(Thank you to The Athletic for neatly organizing all the teams and names).

Italy may be the host of the games, but its first six players are arguably the worst of the 12 teams. While playing in The NHL doesn’t automatically make you better than every other player who isn’t in the top league in the world, Italy is the only one of the 12 teams to not have a single NHL player on its preliminary roster thus far. That might change later on, but for now, this is where things stand. 

After the hosts, you could argue that France has the next weakest initial six. Among the French Six, only Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Alexandre Texier can claim to have seen any action in The NHL. 

Next up in our unofficial power rankings are the teams from Slovakia, Latvia and Denmark. These three countries dotted their first six with some decent NHL talent, but none of these teams is likely to make any noise during the tournament. 

Germany and Czechia are next. Both have some all-star talent, with Leon Draisaitl obviously being the top player on either team. Both countries have made a little bit of noise over the past few years at various international hockey competitions, so it wouldn’t be terribly surprising to see either or both potentially pull off an upset or two come February. 

Now that those seven countries are out of the way, we’re getting into the heavy hitters of the tournament. 

Switzerland was not invited to The NHL’s Four Nations Tournament back in February and while that was a numbers game, they certainly belong in the conversation of the best teams in the world. 

Roman Josi is starting to get up there in age, but he’s been a perennial Norris Trophy candidate over the past decade and should have plenty left in the tank for Italy. Nico Hischier is coming off a season where he set a career-high in goals and deserved better than his fourth-place finish in the Selke voting. The rest of Switzerland’s first six are definitely up to the task, as the Swiss should be among the Final Four teams left standing come next February. 

Finland has plenty of talent; however, their underwhelming showing at Four Nations should have you rethinking how far they can go. There’s an argument to be made that Switzerland should have been invited to Four Nations instead of them and until the Finns prove otherwise, you shouldn’t expect much out of them in this tournament. 

There’s no question Sweden is one of the Top-Three hockey teams in this tournament, but the real X-Factor will be the health and performance of Gabriel Landeskog. Colorado’s Captain finally returned during the playoffs after three years away due to a devastating knee injury. Now that he has returned to The NHL and shown he can still be an impact player, it will be interesting to see how his body holds up over the course of a full season. IF he is anywhere close to the player he once was, then Sweden will be a force to be reckoned with. 

Okay, hands up if you knew we’d list Canada and the United States as the top two teams. (It wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret). 

Canada and The US were viewed as being neck-and-neck entering Four Nations and it’s only fitting that the championship game between the two of them went into overtime, a single goal being the difference. 

Of course, Canada has reigned supreme in hockey for decades, whereas The US is often viewed as Canada’s “little brother” when it comes to the frozen sport. Sure, little brother occasionally beats big brother, but when push comes to shove, big brother wins when it matters most. And that’s what happened at Four Nations. 

IF The US is to finally unseat Canada as the true Number One hockey team in the world, then the Olympics in Italy must be where they finally take down “big brother” and claim gold for the first time since “The Miracle On Ice” boys of 1980. 

There were no surprises among either team’s first six players and both rosters will be star-studded, so only time will tell who is truly superior. Just remember, if you’re going to take aim at The King, you’re only going to get one shot, so you better not miss.