{"id":383934,"date":"2026-01-02T17:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T17:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/383934\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T17:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T17:47:08","slug":"finland-sweden-unveil-mens-hockey-rosters-for-winter-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/383934\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland, Sweden unveil men’s hockey rosters for Winter Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reigning gold medalist Finland chose 24 NHL players for its men’s hockey Olympic roster<\/a> on Friday, while Sweden is bringing in some new goaltenders<\/a> for the Milan Cortina Games.<\/p>\n

Two-time Stanley Cup champion Aleksander Barkov<\/a> is not on the Finnish team after undergoing surgery to repair torn ligaments in his right knee suffered during Florida Panthers<\/a> training camp. Montreal<\/a>‘s Oliver Kapanen<\/a> was among those picked to fill that void after not participating in the 4 Nations Face-Off early last year.<\/p>\n

Finland’s only player who is active in Europe is defenseman Mikko Lehtonen, who was part of the gold-medal-winning team at the Beijing Games in 2022. Lehtonen has skated in eight games this season for Zurich.<\/p>\n

Much like the U.S. and Canada, the vast majority of Finland’s 4 Nations team is back for the Olympics, including all three goaltenders: Kevin Lankinen<\/a>, Juuse Saros<\/a> and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/a>. Urho Vaakanainen<\/a> of the New York Rangers<\/a> is the only one not returning and the only Finnish defenseman in the NHL not chosen.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Related<\/p>\n

Dallas<\/a> and Florida are well-represented, even without Barkov. The Stars have four players, Miro Heiskanen<\/a>, Roope Hintz<\/a>, Esa Lindell<\/a> and Mikko Rantanen<\/a>, while the Panthers have three: Niko Mikkola<\/a>, Eetu Luostarinen<\/a> and Anton Lundell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sweden, meanwhile, picked Jesper Wallstedt<\/a> and Filip Gustavsson<\/a> of the Minnesota Wild<\/a> and Jacob Markstrom<\/a> of the New Jersey Devils<\/a> as its Olympic goaltenders.<\/p>\n

Coach Sam Hallam made a handful of changes from the 4 Nations Face-Off, where Sweden did not lose any of its games in regulation. Gone are goalies Linus Ullmark<\/a> and Samuel Ersson<\/a>, defenseman Mattias Ekholm<\/a> and forward Viktor Arvidsson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among the new faces are Gabriel Landeskog<\/a>, Philip Broberg<\/a>, Pontus Holmberg<\/a> and Alex Wennberg<\/a>. Landeskog, who returned to hockey last spring after missing two full seasons because of a chronic knee injury, is one of just a few players on any team who participated in the Sochi Olympics in 2014.<\/p>\n

Victor Hedman<\/a>, a notable snub 12 years ago, is on injured reserve after undergoing elbow surgery, though the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> expect their captain to return before the Olympic break begins in February. Hedman was among the first six players Sweden named to its roster in June.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reigning gold medalist Finland chose 24 NHL players for its men’s hockey Olympic roster on Friday, while Sweden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-383934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}