{"id":484291,"date":"2026-02-22T18:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T18:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/484291\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T18:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T18:48:12","slug":"why-connor-bedard-isnt-playing-at-olympics-for-team-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/484291\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Connor Bedard isn’t playing at Olympics for Team Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

One young star is shining bright for Team Canada at these Winter Olympics in the form of Macklin Celebrini.<\/p>\n

They could’ve had two, except Connor Bedard was left at home.<\/p>\n

The Chicago Blackhawks<\/a>‘ star center was in consideration for the roster, and in the end, many were surprised he didn’t make the cut.<\/p>\n

But that’s the way the cookie crumbles, and Bedard can only root on his countrymates toward a gold medal from afar.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Nathan MacKinnon went viral for his Olympic focus that paid off<\/a><\/p>\n

Why isn’t Connor Bedard playing at the Olympics?<\/p>\n

Bedard missed the team as Canada went for (mostly) a veteran roster.<\/p>\n

Celebrini is the exception, not the rule. He’s been way too good in 2025-26 to have left him at home, and he has validated the decision at the Games.<\/p>\n

Bedard, still just 20, was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft after playing for the Regina Pats.<\/p>\n

This season, he has played 44 games and has 23 goals with 30 assists for the Blackhawks.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t a shoo-in to put Bedard on the team. He’s not necessarily made to be a bottom-six player, as he’s mostly an offensive-minded player at this point in his career.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Megan Keller’s childhood dreams culminate in a dream come true<\/a><\/p>\n

Nick Suzuki was one of the last few forwards to make the roster, and Canada liked his ability to play on the wing and contribute in a lot of different ways.<\/p>\n

The most headline-grabbing snub was Sam Bennett from the Panthers, and he was chosen as an injury replacement after Anthony Cirelli had to be taken off the roster due to injury.<\/p>\n

Bedard has plenty of time to make Olympic rosters.<\/p>\n

This time around, he just missed the cut.<\/p>\n

More Olympics news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One young star is shining bright for Team Canada at these Winter Olympics in the form of Macklin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-484291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484291","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=484291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}