{"id":129105,"date":"2025-09-09T02:02:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T02:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/129105\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T02:02:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T02:02:06","slug":"wolf-of-flames-looking-to-beat-odds-earn-spot-with-u-s-at-2026-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/129105\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolf of Flames looking to beat odds, earn spot with U.S. at 2026 Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

HENDERSON, Nev. \u2013 Dustin Wolf<\/a> isn\u2019t writing off playing for the United States at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 just yet.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Calgary Flames goalie knows that the odds are long, but he has beaten long odds throughout his career.<\/p>\n

Connor Hellebuyck<\/a> of the Winnipeg Jets is the incumbent for Team USA after a strong showing at the 4 Nations Face-off where the Americans lost to Canada in overtime of the championship game in Boston. Jake Oettinger<\/a> of the Dallas Stars was the backup and Jeremy Swayman<\/a> of the Boston Bruins was the No. 3.<\/p>\n

Each of those three goalies was at the orientation camp for Team USA held last week in Plymouth, Michigan, joined by Joey Daccord<\/a> of the Seattle Kraken, who along with Swayman helped the Americans win the goal medal at the 2025 World Championships this spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould I have loved to go to the orientation camp? Sure, that\u2019s the first step in going to the Olympics, but it’s not the end of the world,\u201d Wolf said at the NHL\/NHLPA North American Player Media Tour on Monday. \u201cI got to spend another week training, getting ready for the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no room at orientation camp for Wolf despite the 24-year-old arguably being the best young American goalie in the NHL.<\/p>\n

As a rookie last season, Wolf went 29-16-8 with a 2.73 goals-against average and .910 save percentage, which was second among United States-born goalies to Hellebuyck, who won the Vezina Trophy as the League\u2019s best goalie and the Hart Trophy as the League’s most valuable player during the regular season.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time he has been overlooked in his young career, but he hopes it will be the last. He was drafted in the seventh round (No. 214) of the 2019 NHL Draft because of concerns about his 6-foot, 166-pound frame translating into the NHL.<\/p>\n

Yet, all he has done is succeed at the pro game. He dominated the American Hockey League, winning the best goalie award in back-to-back seasons and was named league MVP in 2023.<\/p>\n

He was a member of the NHL All-Rookie Team this past season.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go through a season and you play well and you feel comfortable about yourself and there are times when you still get overlooked,\u201d Wolf said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to happen. It\u2019s how my whole career has been, people overlook me. I\u2019m going out there to help my team win as many games as they can. If you win games, people notice and they take you. So that\u2019s the first step.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HENDERSON, Nev. \u2013 Dustin Wolf isn\u2019t writing off playing for the United States at the Olympic Winter Games…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-129105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}