NHL and NHLPA agree to allow players to participate in 2022 Olympics

The NHL has made an agreement with the IIHF to allow players to participate in the 2022 Beijing Olympics!

In case you didn’t have a reason to be excited, with the pre-season coming up this month and the season starting soon, now you have even more reason to be excited: all of your favorite NHL players will be participating in the 2022 Beijing Olympics!

After skipping the 2018 Olympics, this will be the first time since 2014 that NHL players will be

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allowed to participate. Of course, this means that we will be seeing some new faces since the last time NHL players took to Olympic ice.

In 2014, Sidney Crosby led the Canada team to win Gold at the Olympics in a team that consisted of amazing players like Roberto Luongo, Patrick Marleau, and Patrick Sharp. Now, in 2022, the roster will look considerably different, but that doesn’t mean we’re not just as excited to see our hockey players shine!

For Canada, I would still expect Sidney Crosby to be on the team and lead with the “C”. A veteran hockey player still in his prime – I think he’s perfect for the role.

I would also expect to see names pop up like Nathan Mackinnon, Connor McDavid, Mitch Marner, and defensemen like Cale Makar, Shea Theodore, Morgan Reilly, and Alex Pietrangelo. As for goalies, I would still really like to see Carey Price in net after his amazing job in the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs. I would also love to see Marc-Andre Fleury in net after his Vezina-winning performance last season.

Of course, we can’t forget Team USA. Expect players like Patrick Kane, Auston Matthews, Max Pacioretty, Jack Eichel, and Brady Tkchuck to be forwards. Expect Jaccob Slavin, Quinn Hughes, and Seth Jones to be on defense, with Connor Hellebuyck in net.

Other notable players for other countries are Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Leon Draisaitl, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Mika Zabanejad, Gabriel Landeskog, and Nikita Kucherov. I’m sure we can expect to see their names on their respective countries’ rosters.

Of course, these are only ideas, nothing is written in stone yet as to who will be on the teams. It will be exciting to see what will happen in the next months!