Milan-Cortina Games<\/a>. All 32 teams sent at least one player and every country in the tournament, save host Italy, has an NHL player on its roster.<\/p>\nItaly, not surprising, lost all three of its first-round games, getting outscored 19-4.<\/p>\n
NHL players were held out of the 2018 Olympics after the IOC announced it would no longer cover player-related costs such as insurance, travel and accommodations, and they missed the 2022 Games after a COVID-19 outbreak scrambled the league\u2019s schedule, forcing it to withdraw its players from the Olympics six weeks before they were to leave.<\/p>\n
In their absence, countries fielded teams of college players or professionals from lower-tier leagues while many NHL players figured their Olympic dreams would never be realized.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771208905_334_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The United States men\u2019s hockey team leaves the rink after defeating Germany.<\/p>\n
(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe missed out on a couple. So I think it kind of went to the back of everyone\u2019s mind,\u201d said Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper, who is playing in his first Olympics for Canada. \u201cBut then they announced that we\u2019re going to this one. I think everyone got really excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI dreamed about it growing up, like every other kid,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhenever we were playing mini-sticks or street hockey or on the outdoor rink, you were always playing for the Stanley Cup or playing for Olympic gold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kuemper has already won a Stanley Cup. A title in Milan would complete the set.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two greatest honors in hockey,\u201d he said. \u201cWinning the Stanley Cup and winning Olympic gold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canada will probably have to get by the U.S. to get Kuemper his medal and the U.S. looked beatable for most of a sloppy first period Sunday, one that saw two defensemen collide on a power play, knocking each other to the ice. Later in the period, forward Jack Hughes tumbled to the ice untouched.<\/p>\n
The Americans finally found their stride, going ahead to stay when Werenski, a defenseman with the Columbus Blue Jackets, took a pass from Matthews in the center of the right circle, stepped up and drilled a wrister past German goalie Maximilian Franzreb nine seconds before the first intermission.<\/p>\n
Matthews doubled the advantage 3:25 into the second period, poking the rebound of a Quinn Hughes\u2019 shot by Franzreb for his second power-play goal of the Olympics. Faber, who plays for the Minnesota Wild, made it 3-0 with less than 2:30 left in the second period, playing the puck off the boards near the blue line and flicking it on goal where Eichel got a stick up in front of Franzreb, distracting the goalie as he reached up unsuccessfully to glove the puck.<\/p>\n
Thompson, of the Buffalo Sabres, and Matthews closed out the scoring for the U.S. with goals less than five minutes apart into the final period. Tim Stutzle of the Ottawa Senators finally got Germany on the board with his fourth of the Olympics with less than nine minutes to play.<\/p>\n
Now for the U.S. it\u2019s on to the quarterfinals, which is the Olympic version of the NHL playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d be idiots to think anything other than the game in front of us,\u201d McAvoy said when asked about facing Canada in the final. \u201cWe\u2019ve said from the beginning \u2018every single game, every single day.\u2019 It\u2019s just about winning one hockey game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to accomplish our goal, get two wins, win the group. That was our goal coming into this and now we get some added some added rest, which is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN\u00a0\u2014\u00a0With NHL stars back in the Winter Olympics for the first time in 12 years, organizers of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[85311,20970,15722,22844,85313,20224,48,52,51,47,50,49,5463,10012,85314,9018,5250,85315,67386,85312,52847],"class_list":{"0":"post-179676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-auston-matthews","9":"tag-brock-faber","10":"tag-front","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-goal-moment","13":"tag-jack-eichel","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-headlines","16":"tag-la-news","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","19":"tag-los-angeles-news","20":"tag-minute","21":"tag-olympics","22":"tag-puck","23":"tag-second","24":"tag-shot","25":"tag-sloppy-play","26":"tag-tage-thompson","27":"tag-u-s-hockey","28":"tag-zach-werenski"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}