Oliver Bjorkstrand knows that Denmark is likely to be overlooked when people glance at the team pools for the 2026 Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n
That won\u2019t change how special the current opportunity is for the Tampa Bay Lightning forward and his fellow countrymen on a roster that boasts more NHL talent than ever before.<\/p>\n
Bjorkstrand and Denmark face off against Team USA and Lightning forward Jake Guentzel at 3:10 p.m. on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s different expectations for Denmark and USA and Canada,\u201d Bjorkstrand said before leaving for the Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big tournament. You watch it growing up, and it’s so cool to have the chance to be part of it. That in itself is really special. We\u2019re going to go over there with the mentality that we’re trying to win every game because you never know if anything crazy could happen, but it’s just going to be a really cool experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Denmark\u2019s population is just over 6 million people, equal to approximately one-third of Florida. The country has produced quality NHL talent despite its small stature.<\/p>\n
Bjorkstrand is playing for a Denmark team that includes the country\u2019s all-time leading NHL scorer in Carolina Hurricanes forward Nikolaj Ehlers, Ottawa Senators veteran Lars Eller as well as Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen, the country\u2019s winningest goalie.<\/p>\n
The Lightning forward knows Andersen and Ehlers, and he\u2019s also familiar with Ellers\u2019 family. The 2026 Winter Olympics will be the first time Bjorkstrand gets to play alongside Eller\u2014who is the only Danish NHLer to surpass 1,000 games played.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s always a little bit of an expectation if you come from the NHL that you can elevate the team a little bit, but we have a lot of good players. So we need everybody to step up, and I think we can,\u201d Bjorkstrand said from Italy on Monday.<\/p>\n
Denmark finished fourth at the 2025 IIHF World Championships, the country\u2019s highest-ever finish on the international stage. This year marks the country\u2019s second-ever trip to the Olympics after Denmark finished seventh at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China.<\/p>\n
The 2026 numbers don\u2019t lie\u2014Denmark has six NHLers on its roster this year, and seven Danish players have appeared in an NHL game in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s grown in the sense that we\u2019ve been able to get more players in better leagues in Europe over the years,\u201d Bjorkstrand said of Danish hockey.<\/p>\n
Before the 21st century, most Danish hockey players spent their entire careers playing in European leagues. Forward Frans Nielsen was the first reach the NHL with his debut for the New York Islanders in 2007, and 17 fellow Danish NHL players have followed.<\/p>\n
Both Bjorkstrand and Nielsen hail from the town of Herning. Despite a population under 60,000 people, the municipality has churned out the NHL likes of Bjorkstrand and Nielsen as well as Andersen and former forwards Nicklas Jensen and Peter Regin.<\/p>\n
This season Bjorkstrand joined Nielsen, Ehlers and Eller as Danish NHLers to reach 400 career points, and he passed Nielsen in career goals last season. Bjorkstrand has 182 career goals (third) and 411 points (fourth) in the NHL, approaching Eller in both categories on the all-time list among Danes.<\/p>\n
Nielsen deserves a lot of credit for making that possible, according to Bjorkstrand.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrans, he really set the tone for all of Denmark. I mean, once you see that first player from a small country make it to the NHL, I think in Denmark it allowed everyone to think, \u2018I can make it to the NHL.\u2019 He was the first one, first goal, first everything. At least for me, I looked up to him, and that was kind of your first reality of, this could really happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bjorkstrand got to see Nielsen\u2019s talent firsthand\u2014a then 16-year-old Nielsen played one season semi-professionally in Denmark with Bjorkstrand\u2019s father, and years later Bjorkstrand played alongside Nielsen on the Danish national team.<\/p>\n
Bjorkstrand played in Denmark for nearly his entire youth hockey career, developing much of his game before leaving when he was 17 to play major junior hockey in the Western Hockey League for the Portland Winterhawks.<\/p>\n
Nielsen sparked the NHL interest, and it continues to this day in Denmark.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom there we started getting more and more,\u201d Bjorkstrand said. \u201cI think the most we’ve had in the league since then is maybe six at a time. So, in that sense it’s grown. As far as how many people play hockey in Denmark? It’s still fairly small. It’s hard. I think it just costs a lot of money to get hockey rinks, and to build hockey you need more hockey rinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the sport has gained momentum. That makes Bjorkstrand’s chance to play for Denmark even more special this February.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn’t get out to as many people, but I like to think it’s grown a little bit. To what extent, I don’t know. But at least we\u2019re able to produce more high-end talent in Europe and then we get more and more draft picks over the years. It\u2019s been good. It’s a positive thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oliver Bjorkstrand knows that Denmark is likely to be overlooked when people glance at the team pools for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-154680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}