Team Canada was only ever going to bring 25 players to the Milano Cortina Olympics in February. Of course, there are well more than 25 players who merited selection and the final roster was always going to be heavily scrutinized and debated.
Now that it’s here, did general manager Doug Armstrong and the rest of the Canada braintrust get it right? We won’t know for sure until the players hit the ice in Italy in a little over five weeks, but that won’t stop the heated discussion over the makeup of the team in the meantime.
Looking at those on the outside looking in, who stands out as the biggest omission from Canada’s Olympic squad?
The 4 Nations Face-Off castoffs
Last February, Canada defeated the United States in a thrilling overtime final to capture the inaugural 4 Nations Face-Off. A wildly successful event, it was the first best-on-best international tournament since the 2014 Sochi Olympics. The weeklong All-Star Game substitute served as an aperitif for the Olympics and gave Armstrong and the rest of Canada management a chance to create the bones for the 2026 team.
In looking at the 25 players announced for Italy on Wednesday, 19 - including all eight blueliners - return from the 4 Nations. But there were 24 players on that team, meaning that five missed out. Not going to Milano Cortina are Florida Panthers forward Sam Bennett, Seth Jarvis of the Carolina Hurricanes, the Philadelphia Flyers’ Travis Konecny and goaltenders Adin Hill of the Vegas Golden Knights and Sam Montembeault of the Montreal Canadiens. In their place comes San Jose Sharks forward Macklin Celebrini, Tom Wilson of the Washington Capitals, Habs captain Nick Suzuki and the New York Islanders’ Bo Horvat, along with netminders Darcy Kuemper of the Los Angeles Kings and the Caps’ Logan Thompson.
Bennett is, perhaps, the most surprising absence. On the back of consecutive Stanley Cup triumphs, the Toronto-born forward has established himself as one of the league’s premier playoff performers. Few possess the ability to get under an opponent’s skin like Bennett does, consistently flirting with controversial play to discombobulate the team on the other side of the ice. With 15 goals and seven assists in 23 playoff games last spring, Bennett won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason’s most valuable player. He picked up where he left off with 13 goals and 29 points through 39 games this season and Bennett is poised to set career-highs in both goals and assists this season. Will Canada regret passing on what Bennett brings to the table?
The young guns
Before he incurred an upper-body injury on Dec. 12, only Colorado Avalanche captain Nathan MacKinnon had more points than Chicago Blackhawks forward Connor Bedard’s 44 in 31 games. The 20-year-old North Vancouver native was showing the kind of tantalizing skill that made him the first overall selection of the 2023 NHL Entry Draft and he appeared poised to head to his first Olympic Games after making his senior debut for Canada at the 2024 IIHF World Championship. Having yet to return to action since the injury, it was, perhaps, not a surprise to see Bedard left off of the Canada roster, but what did raise eyebrows was what Armstrong said when asked how much of a consideration Bedard’s injury was.
“Not a lot, quite honestly,” Armstrong said. “His name was right there until the last second because we could have named him [while injured] and moved forward. I think the reality is there are so many good players and we just had difficult decisions to make.”
And what about Matthew Schaefer? The first overall pick of last summer’s draft, the 18-year-old Islanders rearguard looks like a seasoned veteran in his first pro campaign. Averaging a team-high 23:47 of ice-time a night, the Hamilton, Ont. native became the youngest defenceman in NHL history to reach 25 points in a season this past Tuesday night. Should Canada have found a spot for Schaefer among the defensive corps?
Too much trust in Binnington?
Nobody knows goaltender Jordan Binnington better than Armstrong, his general manager with the St. Louis Blues. In Canada’s introductory press conference on Wednesday, Armstrong called the team in front of Binnington this season “substandard” and while that might be true, what’s also accurate is that the 32-year-old Richmond Hill, Ont. native simply does not have the numbers befitting any No. 1 goalie this season, let alone Canada’s first-choice netminder. Through 23 games, Binnington has a 3.44 goals against average and an .870 save percentage. Among qualified goaltenders, Binnington’s GAA is 55th of 61 and his save percentage is 59th of 61. While he absolutely played well in the 4 Nations Face-Off and made a number of key saves in the championship game, should that have been enough to paper over what has been an extremely poor season?
Binnington’s selection meant there was no place for, perhaps, the league’s top netminders this season in the Colorado Avalanche tandem of Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood. At 12-1-1 in 15 games, Blackwood, a 29-year-old Thunder Bay, Ont. native is third in the NHL with a 2.15 GAA and owns a .924 SV%, second-best in the league. A 33-year-old veteran from Brampton, Ont., Wedgewood is 17-14 with a 2.13 GAA and a SV% of .919.
Though both men have suited up for Canada before, their international experience is modest at best. Wedgewood’s is limited to a single IIHF World Junior Championships, while Blackwood has played at both a World Juniors and the 2019 worlds. Even as hot hands, it was perhaps a lack of experience that led to the duo being overlooked.
No room for tenured vets
As Armstrong said repeatedly during Wednesday’s press conference, Canada has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the depth of the player selection pool and tough choices were inevitable. It doesn’t make them any less cruel for some players.
It appears Nashville Predators forward Steven Stamkos will never live out his Olympic dream. At 23, Stamkos was set to join Canada at the Sochi Games in 2014 until breaking his leg in the fall of 2013 ruled him out of contention for the tournament. With the NHL not participating in the 2018 and 2022 Olympics, Stamkos, one of the league’s top snipers for over a decade and a future Hall of Famer, finds himself on the outside looking in again, this time at 35 and in the twilight of his storied career.
Playing over a point-per-game clip for a second straight season, Winnipeg Jets centre Mark Scheifele was undoubtedly hoping for a call that didn’t come. Also left off of the 4 Nations Face-Off team, the 32-year-old Scheifele has ample experience in a Canada sweater, but was passed over again. Having reached the 500-goal mark this season, Toronto Maple Leafs forward John Tavares, who played in four games at Sochi 2014, hoped that his resurgent 38-goal campaign last season would merit consideration, but he, too, was far too deep down the line for a call.
The rest
Nobody in the NHL had more goals in the calendar year of 2025 than Boston Bruins forward Morgan Geekie. Still, that wasn’t enough for a seat on the plane. What about Zach Hyman? The veteran Toronto-born forward has 155 goals since signing with the Edmonton Oilers in 2021 and his chemistry with Connor McDavid would have made him a logical choice for consideration. While Canada opted to keep together its blue-line group from the 4 Nations, will it regret passing on the offensive prowess from the back from the Oilers’ Evan Bouchard and Jakob Chychrun of the Caps?
