{"id":463985,"date":"2026-02-07T07:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T07:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/463985\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T07:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T07:45:07","slug":"canada-projected-lines-for-olympics-by-nhl-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/463985\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada projected lines for Olympics by NHL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 men’s hockey tournament starts Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The tournament, the first with NHL players since the 2014 Sochi Olympics, will feature all 12 teams playing three preliminary games in their respective groups, then all 12 moving on to a single-elimination playoff that will conclude with the gold medal game Feb. 22.<\/p>\n

Team Canada, which is in Group A, will open against Team Czechia on Thursday (10:30 a.m. ET: Peacock, USA, CBC Gem, CBC), then play Team Switzerland on Feb. 13 and Team France on Feb. 15.<\/p>\n

Though Canada announced its roster Dec. 31, NHL.com is taking it a step further, taking our shot at what some countries\u2019 forward lines, defense pairs and goalie depth chart should look like.<\/p>\n

Today, NHL.com staff writer Derek Van Diest plays coach of Team Canada with his projected lines:<\/p>\n

FORWARDS<\/p>\n

Macklin Celebrini<\/a> — Connor McDavid<\/a> — Mitch Marner<\/a><\/p>\n

Sidney Crosby<\/a> — Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> — Sam Reinhart<\/a><\/p>\n

Brad Marchand<\/a> — Nick Suzuki<\/a> — Tom Wilson<\/a><\/p>\n

Brandon Hagel<\/a> — Bo Horvat<\/a> — Mark Stone<\/a><\/p>\n

Seth Jarvis<\/a><\/p>\n

Sam Bennett<\/a><\/p>\n

Just the thought of having Celebrini and McDavid on the same line should get Canadian hockey fans excited. Celebrini is having an outstanding second season with the San Jose Sharks and seems more than capable of keeping up and playing with the most dynamic offensive player in the world in McDavid, the Edmonton Oilers captain. Marner (Vegas Golden Knights) would round out the top line very well. Canada\u2019s second line would be just as exciting with MacKinnon (Colorado Avalanche) playing with his good friend Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins), with Reinhart (Florida Panthers) riding shotgun. Reinhart, who is an excellent finisher, has the potential for a great tournament taking set-up passes from MacKinnon and Crosby every game. To me, Canada\u2019s third and fourth lines are interchangeable and each can bring a high level of offense as well as some bite defensively. Wilson (Washington Capitals) and Marchand (Panthers) are not fun to play against and would provide a lot of space for Suzuki (Montreal Canadiens) to operate if they played together. Hagel (Tampa Bay Lightning), Horvat (New York Islanders) and Stone (Golden Knights) would also make for a formidable line, capable of playing on each side of the puck. Point (Hurricanes) and Bennett (Panthers) would be the extra forwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 men’s hockey tournament starts Wednesday. The tournament, the first with NHL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-463985","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\/463985","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=463985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}