SUNRISE, Fla.\u202f\u2013\u202fFive Florida Panthers players\u00a0and five staff members\u00a0will\u00a0represent\u00a0their home countries at the upcoming\u00a02026\u00a0IIHF World Championship, taking place May 15 through May 31 in\u00a0Zurich and Fribourg, Switzerland.\u00a0Games\u00a0will be broadcast on NHL Network in the United States.<\/p>\n
Marek Alscher,\u00a022,\u00a0will\u00a0represent\u00a0Czechia at the IIHF World Championship for the first time. He previously played for his home country at the 2024 IIHF U20 World Junior Championship, skating in seven games\u00a0to help the Czechs capture the bronze medal\u00a0over Finland.\u00a0Alscher made his NHL debut with the Panthers in 2025-26, notching three assists over four games played. He also skated in 52 American Hockey League (AHL) games with Florida\u2019s affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers, recording 11 points (3-8-11).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aleksander Barkov, 30,\u00a0missed the 2026 Winter Olympic Games due to injury but had been named to\u00a0Finland\u2019s\u00a0preliminary roster in June of 2025. He previously\u00a0earned a bronze medal\u00a0at the\u00a02014\u00a0Winter Olympic Games\u00a0alongside current Panthers assistant coach\u00a0Tuomo Ruutu, and\u00a0earned a silver medal\u00a0representing\u00a0his home country at the 2016 IIHF Men\u2019s World Championship. At the 2025 NHL 4 Nations Face-Off, Barkov served as captain of Finland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anton\u00a0Lundell,\u00a024,\u00a0will be\u00a0participating\u00a0in his second IIHF World Championship after earning a silver medal with Finland in 2021, where he posted seven points (4-3-7) in\u00a010 games as a\u00a019-year-old.\u00a0He helped Finland capture the bronze medal at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games\u00a0this\u00a0season and\u00a0previously earned gold at\u00a0the 2019 IIHF U20 WJC and 2018 IIHF U18 WJC,\u00a0as well as\u00a0a bronze medal at the 2021 U20 WJC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sandis Vilmanis, 22,\u00a0will\u00a0represent\u00a0Latvia at the IIHF World Championship for the first time in his career. He played for Latvia at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in February\u00a0as well as at the\u00a02022, 2023 and 2024\u00a0IIHF U20 World Junior Championships, serving as an alternate captain in 2024 where he produced four points (2-2-4) over five games.\u00a0Vilmanis made his NHL debut with the Panthers in 2025-26, logging five points (3-2-5) in 19 games with Florida while compiling 38 points (17-21-38) in 48 American Hockey League (AHL) contests with the Panthers affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Matthew Tkachuk, 28, will attempt to become the first American to join the Triple Gold Club (Stanley Cup, World Championship Gold Medal and Olympic Gold Medal), as well as the first player in NHL history to win all three parts of the Triple Gold Club within a 12-month span. This will be Tkachuk\u2019s first time\u00a0participating\u00a0in the IIHF World Championship.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to\u00a0his 2026 Olympic gold medal, Tkachuk also earned gold\u00a0representing\u00a0the United States at the 2015 IIHF U18 World Junior Championship and the 2014 U17 World Hockey Challenge, as well as a bronze medal at the 2016 IIHF U20 WJC. He served as alternate captain for the U.S. at the 2026 Olympics and 2025 4 Nations Face-Off.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Florida\u00a0will have four staff members\u00a0representing\u00a0the United States. Panthers Assistant General Manager Brett Peterson is serving as\u00a0General Manager for the second time after holding the position in 2024. Panthers\u00a0Head Equipment Manager\u00a0Teddy Richards\u00a0will\u00a0serve as equipment manager\u00a0and\u00a0Florida\u2019s\u00a0Head Athletic Trainer\u00a0Dave DiNapoli\u00a0will work as\u00a0athletic\u00a0trainer. Panthers President of Hockey Operations & General Manager\u00a0Bill Zito\u00a0will serve on the Advisory Group.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Panthers Assistant General Manager\u00a0Gregory Campbell\u00a0will\u00a0assist\u00a0with evaluating and selecting players for\u00a0Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Panthers\u00a0fans can stay up to date on all the Cats\u2019 representatives\u00a0at the 2026 IIHF World Championships at\u00a0FloridaPanthers.com\/WorldChampionship<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n 2026-27 Florida Panthers Territory Memberships are available now! Click\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0to learn more. For all the latest in\u00a0Panthers\u00a0news, concerts and events at\u00a0Amerant\u00a0Bank Arena & FTL War Memorial, sign up for\u00a0’93 Society newsletter<\/a>\u00a0and receive information straight to your inbox. Visit\u00a0FloridaPanthers.com<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0SeatGeek.com<\/a> for all ticketing needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUNRISE, Fla.\u202f\u2013\u202fFive Florida Panthers players\u00a0and five staff members\u00a0will\u00a0represent\u00a0their home countries at the upcoming\u00a02026\u00a0IIHF World Championship, taking place May…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-644365","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\/644365","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=644365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}