{"id":477971,"date":"2026-02-13T19:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/477971\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T19:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:35:07","slug":"denmark-really-looking-forward-to-best-on-best-test-vs-u-s-in-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/477971\/","title":{"rendered":"Denmark &#8216;really looking forward to&#8217; best-on-best test vs. U.S. in Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MILAN &#8212; The impact of NHL participation in the Olympics will be on display Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Team Denmark will play against a lineup full of NHL stars for the first time in a best-on-best tournament, facing Team USA at Santagiulia Arena (3:10 p.m. ET; Peacock, USA, ICI T\u00e9l\u00e9, CBC Gem, TSN).<\/p>\n<p>Even though Denmark will be a huge underdog in the Group C preliminary round game at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, it will be a special moment. When the Danes made their first Olympic appearance in men\u2019s hockey in Beijing in 2022, NHL players weren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was still like something was missing,\u201d said Denmark forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/nicklas-jensen-8476482\" title=\"Nicklas Jensen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nicklas Jensen<\/a>, who played 31 games in the NHL from 2012-17 and now plays professionally in Switzerland. \u201cThis time, it\u2019s literally the best athletes in the world competing in ice hockey, which is not making our chances easier, but it\u2019s making the tournament way cooler, and this is the way it should be. It\u2019s going to be a very, very tough game for us but a game we\u2019re really looking forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Denmark has 6 million people and 29 indoor rinks, according to the International Ice Hockey Federation. Only 31 players born in Denmark have been selected in the NHL Draft, and only 19 have played in the League, including seven this season.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/nikolaj-ehlers-8477940\" title=\"Nikolaj Ehlers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nikolaj Ehlers<\/a> ranks first in NHL history among players born in Denmark with 563 points (239 goals, 324 assists) in 731 games. The Carolina Hurricanes forward is representing his country in Milan.<\/p>\n<p>Next is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/frans-nielsen-8470144\" title=\"Frans Nielsen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Frans Nielsen<\/a>, who had 473 points (167 goals, 306 assists) in 925 games as a forward for the New York Islanders and Detroit Red Wings from 2006-21. He is now working in European player development for the Seattle Kraken and as an analyst for TV 2 in Denmark at the Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t give them a lot of chances tomorrow, to be honest,\u201d Nielsen said with a laugh. \u201cBut you know what? I think just being from a small nation like Denmark, this is one of those games where it\u2019s just cool that we get to play the U.S. when they bring the best they have. It\u2019s something Denmark has never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nielsen said there is a buzz about this game. Denmark sent only 39 athletes to the Olympics; 25 of them are on the hockey team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not really a winter country, so having a full hockey team is big, and it\u2019s getting a lot of attention,\u201d Nielsen said. \u201cNow people in Denmark and hockey fans in Denmark, they get to see the best against our guys, so it\u2019s going to be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN &#8212; The impact of NHL participation in the Olympics will be on display Saturday. Team Denmark will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-477971","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\/477971","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=477971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}