2026 Olympic men's ice hockey rosters

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Kind of OT, but is it surprising that most recent IIHF men's ranking has Switzerland in second? Top 3 countries are U.S, Switzerland, then Canada.

The most recent ranking is from May 2025.

https://www.iihf.com/en/static/68775...d_rankings_men

It surprised me, but maybe I don't understand what the rankings actually mean.

Well Canada didn't medal at the last Olympics. And in the last two IIHF WCs, the Swiss came second (and Canada didn't medal). Here's their outline:

The IIHF World Ranking is a tool to reflect the long-term quality of the countries' national team program. The IIHF World Ranking is based on awarding points for the final positions in the last four IIHF World Championships and in the last Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament. The 2025 IIHF World Ranking published in May 2025 only applies to Men's Ice Hockey. It is thus based on the performance at the 2025, 2024, 2023, and the 2022 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship and at the 2022 Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament (plus the Olympic Qualification for non-qualified teams).

The team that wins the IIHF World Championship gold medal or the Olympic gold medal receives 1600 points. In general, there is a 20-point interval between two ranked positions (for example, 1280 points for the 13th place and 1260 points for the 14th place). As an exception to this principle there is a 40-point interval between gold and silver, silver and bronze, the 4th and 5th position and between the 8th and 9th position in the top division. The reason for the larger intervals for these positions is to give teams a bonus for reaching the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the final and for winning the gold medal. (The bonus formula can be changed with any alterations to the playing format).

To enable the ranking to accurately reflect current form, the greatest importance is given to results of the last year's competition. To a lesser degree, attention is also paid to results from previous years. The system uses a four-year cycle as the points earned in one year decline linearly within the next 3 years and in the 5th year results are dropped from the calculation altogether.

[IamNotKenKing]

double post

[IamNotKenKing]

Originally Posted by Eric Vail

Points aren't everything, but the Canadian team's forwards have scored 924 points in 774 games (1.19 points/game)

The American's have scored 725 points in 737 games (.98 points/game).

Scoring totals mean even less for defensemen, or Evan Bouchard would have made Canada's team. Still, here are the numbers:

Canada 442 points 272 games .62 points/game
US 405 points 281 games .69 points/game

You did the points per game backwards for defense:
Canada is 1.625.
US is 1.44.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by IamNotKenKing

You did the points per game backwards for defense:
Canada is 1.625.
US is 1.44.

I think he meant
Canada 272 points 442 games = .62 points/game
US 281 points 405 games .69 points/game

[mile]

https://twitter.com/user/status/2021051093371978227

[Goriders]

Just a question.

Why is Binnington the starting goalie? He’s statistically almost the worst goalie in the NHL this year.

I get being loyal. But not in this case.

[cam_calderon]

Originally Posted by Goriders

Just a question.

Why is Binnington the starting goalie? He’s statistically almost the worst goalie in the NHL this year.

I get being loyal. But not in this case.

Rightly or wrongly he is 'the guy' after 4 Nations, and the cup ring (granted that was ages ago).

[OILFAN #81]

Originally Posted by Goriders

Just a question.

Why is Binnington the starting goalie? He’s statistically almost the worst goalie in the NHL this year.

I get being loyal. But not in this case.

I think as the poster earlier mentioned, that they want to give him a shot after the 4 Nations. Binnington has been bad in St. Louis this year but they feel he can be much better with a strong team. Personally, I would have Thompson as the starter but I can understand why they start with Binnington. If Binnington falters in the round robin I'd guess they go to Thompson.

[cam_calderon]

Exactly, if he's giving up terrible goals against the minnows you can pivot to Thompson.

[UKflames]

I was looking for an Olympics thread but couldn't find one, so apologies if a little OT.

Whilst they deserve their place in the Olympics, the womens ice hockey has been hard to watch. Canada and USA beat up on every other team in the group stages, then when the lower teams play each other the quality is not that good. You might as well just have a 7 game series between Canada and USA, whilst all the other play round robin for third.

[cam_calderon]

Men's isn't much better but at least there are four good teams, five if Russia were there. Denmark and Italy are hardly going to give much of a fight.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Goriders

Just a question.

Why is Binnington the starting goalie? He’s statistically almost the worst goalie in the NHL this year.

I get being loyal. But not in this case.

He's not almost the worst goalie statistically. He's the worst goalie statistically.

His WAR is a league worst -4.16. The 2nd worst is Ersson at -3.02.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by cam_calderon

Exactly, if he's giving up terrible goals against the minnows you can pivot to Thompson.

Or he’s fine against the minnows and blows it in the quarters. By then it could be too late.

[sa226]

My guess on the goaltending is that the thinking is that these guys don't have the luxury of time to get "hot" or get into any sort of rhythm, so they need vets that have experience in big game situations or just the best goalies available.

Binnington wasn't great last year either, but in the 4 nations he was huge. So he's got a Cup and a 4 Nations title under his belt so the net is his.

But much like we saw in Salt Lake, I think Pat Quinn's intention was to give the net to Curtis Joseph, but Cujo wasn't that great so they pivoted to Brodeur and the rest was history.

It would be equally unsurprising if Binnington is the main starter for the entirety of the tournament, or if he craps the bed and they pivot to Thompson.


My hope if that if there are warning signs that Binnington just doesn't have it this tournament, Cooper doesn't stubbornly stick with him out of some recency bias from the 4 Nations.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by UKflames

I was looking for an Olympics thread but couldn't find one, so apologies if a little OT.

Whilst they deserve their place in the Olympics, the womens ice hockey has been hard to watch. Canada and USA beat up on every other team in the group stages, then when the lower teams play each other the quality is not that good. You might as well just have a 7 game series between Canada and USA, whilst all the other play round robin for third.

I don’t think it’s off topic nor care that you posted here, but here is the Olympic sub-forum: https://forum.calgarypuck.com/forumdisplay.php?f=50

it’s great, daily threads and some great work put in by CofR with schedules of interest

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Your regular reminder that trying to use NHL point scoring as a comparator for rosters of best on best single elimination tournament teams is very, very stupid. It does not matter if one guy has 163 points over his last 155 games and another guy has 122 over his last 108 games. There is nothing similar about these contexts that would make that comparison compelling - the incentives are completely different from an 82 game standings-driven season with a completely different talent level both among your linemates and your opponents. The only useful thing to look at in this context is observable talent and skillsets.

And this is coming from a stats guy. Look at my username. If I am the one telling you this, please, stop calculating and comparing points per game. It's meaningless.

[Scornfire]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

I'm a little bit worried about our D depth. No Raddysh, no Chychrun. Hopefully the guys we have can get it done again like they did at 4 Nations. But this is not the best blue line we could have iced, IMO.

Doughty is way past his prime and was probably the worst player on the 4 Nations roster, probably 4-5 guys who should've gotten the nod ahead of him

[mdubz]

Whose worse, Doughty or “this season” Weegar?

[jg13]

https://twitter.com/user/status/2021263008631034042

[The EBUG's EBUG]

Going to be an interesting decision for Cooper et al regarding the goaltending.

Czechia are no slouch but then you have the Swiss and the French, would think you want to see Thompson or Kuemper against some legit competition so that means one of them probably goes against the Swiss. Going to have to make a bold call for the knockout round on a tiny sample size.

Binnington is interesting because he clutched up in the 4 Nations final so seemingly has a ton of rope but I didn't think he was particularly good before that. Obviously it was the most important game so full credit but it's strange to me that they're this deferential given how awful he's been all year.