Twelve countries announced a total of 72 players for their preliminary rosters who will participate next year at the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. And although the Philadelphia Flyers don’t have a bevy of international talent not named Matvei Michkov to hang their hat on, they do have at least one current player who will dress for their respective counry.
Latvia includes current Flyers (and Phantoms) forward Rodrigo Abols. Abols played 22 games last season with the Flyers, scoring twice and adding three assists. Most of the season he spent in Lehigh Valley, where he scored 15 goals with 17 helpers in 47 games. He also scored twice in seven playoff games with the Phantoms. Abols joins fellow NHLers in Columbus goalie Elvis Merzlinkins, Vancouver netminder Arturs Silovs, Panthers defenseman Uvis Balinskis, and Tampa’s Zemgus Girgensons. Teddy Blugers spent parts of eight seasons in the NHL.
The first six players of each of the twelve qualifying countries were announced Monday. Those countries are Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. And while some countries don’t quite have grade-A NHL talent, others look quite stacked. Finland’s include the Stars’ trio of Mikko Rantanen, Esa Lindell and Miro Heiskanen, Florida’s Aleksander Barkov, Carolina’s Sebastian Aho and Nashville’s Juuse Saros. Meanwhile Sweden’s first six include Toronto’s William Nylander, Colorado’s Gabriel Landeskog, Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin, Detroit’s Lucas Raymond, Tampa’s Victor Hedman and the Kings’ Andrian Kempe.
Team Canada (who released their players second-to-last prior to the United States) sees Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby, Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar, Florida’s Sam Reinhart and Tampa’s Brayden Point. It’s doubtful that any Flyers player would’ve been comparable to those six mentioned. As for the United States, Toronto’s Auston Matthews, the Tkahucks (Matthew from Florida and Brady from Ottawa), Boston’s Chalie McAvoy, Vancouver’s Quinn Hughes and Vegas forward Jack Eichel are the preliminary Olympic six.
Czechia is led by Boston’s David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha, Anaheim’s (and former Flyer) Radko Gudas alongside Lukas Dostal, Martin Necas of Colorado and New Jersey’s Ondrej Palat. Switzerland’s top six are New Jersey’s Nico Hischier, Timo Meier and Jonas Siegenthaler, Los Angeles King Kevin Fiala, Winnipeg’s nino Niederreiter and Nashville’s Roman Josi. And not to be outdone, Germany sees Edmonton’s Leon Draisatl, Ottawa’s Tim Stutzle, Detroit’s Moritz Seider, Florida’s Nico Sturm, Seattle’s Philipp Grubauer and Chicago’s Lukas Reichel.
Slovakia sees Montreal’s Juraj Slafkovsky, Washington’s Martin Fehervary, New Jersey’s Simon Nemec and Tomas Tatar, Tampa’s Erik Cernak and Calgary’s Martin Pospisil. Denmark will have Washington’s Lars Eller, Carolina’s Frederik Andersen, Winnipeg’s Nikolaj Ehlers, Tampa’s Oliver Bjorkstrand and Golden Knights winger Jonas Rondbjerg. Meanwhile, France is led by former Flyer Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, the Blues’ Alexandre Texier and former Oiler/Blues defenseman Yohann Auvitu.
Of course these are just the first six players for each team. It’s suspected a few more Flyers — Travis Konecny? Travis Sanheim, Tyson Foerster? One, two or all three for Canada? — will end up wearing their nation’s colors. Sweden could see Sam Ersson participate as he was part of Sweden’s Four Nations Face-Off roster, defeating the U.S. in the round robin portion. But first a half season of hockey has to be played. And with that comes the possibility of injuries.
