The hockey world is ecstatic that for the first time since Sochi in 2014, NHL players will be participating in the Winter Olympics. We’ve only had tastes of best-on-best hockey over the past 12 years, and it has done little to satisfy the hunger for this level of hockey. With just a few short weeks to go until the tournament begins, we will soon be able to see the likes of Connor McDavid and Nathan Mackinnon in an Olympic hockey competition. If the ice surface passes the tests at the mostly completed rink in Italy, that is.
Regardless, the current iteration of the Edmonton Oilers, despite being a perennial Stanley Cup contender and one of the best teams in the league over the past five years, have very little presence at the Games. Due in part to a few major snubs, like Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, and Kasperi Kapanen for Canada, Sweden, and Finland respectively.
But, those aren’t the only Oilers set to participate in this tournament. After all, once an Oiler, always an Oiler, right? That’s why we will take a look through the Olympic rosters and compile a list of all current and former Oilers you will be able to watch at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Teams Finland, Italy, Latvia, Sweden, Switzerland, and United States do not have any current or former members of the Edmonton Oilers.
Team Canada
Just one Oiler will be present on Team Canada, that being McDavid. Indisputably one of the greatest hockey talents the world has ever seen, McDavid will finally get a chance to hit the world stage to showcase it. So far in his career, he has missed out on best-on-best international hockey, with just the World Championship and World Cup of Hockey in 2016, and last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off in which he scored the tournament winning goal for Canada.
McDavid will be a focal point of this team and tournament as the Canadian squad looks to redeem themselves in Italy after the disaster that was Turin in 2006. I think we all hope to see McDavid line up at least once with Nathan MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby.
Team Czechia
Czechia will be rostering one former Oiler. That being David Tomasek. The short-tenured forward took a chance to come to North America in his prime, but it did not work out and he terminated his contract to return back to Europe after the Christmas break.
There is an easy argument to make that he did not receive a proper chance. Even though he started strong and fit in well right from opening night, he quickly found himself banished to the bottom of the lineup or press box and never got a regular spot on the team. Tomasek’s international resume features a gold medal at the 2024 World Championship.
Team Denmark
When we looked at Denmark’s roster, one name stood out as a throwback: Patrick Russell. He may have been overshadowed by fellow Russell and shot blocking extraordinaire Kris Russell during his tenure in Edmonton, but Patrick still played a decent sample size of games with the Oilers.
Over the course of three seasons, he played 59 games and recorded seven assists. About the same amount of total assists as Kris Russell would get blocked shots in a game.
Nevertheless, the now 33-year-old forward is still playing professionally at a high enough level to make an Olympic team. Since departing Edmonton during the 2020–21 season, Russell has spent four seasons in the SHL as a productive forward, and has joined the DEL for this season where he has 49 points in 39 games with the Cologne Sharks.
Team France
Let’s go with back-to-back throwback name pulls here and see how many of us remember this defender. Going back to the 2017–18 season, a great era for the Oilers defence, one player that saw less than a half a season’s worth of games as an Oiler is Yohann Auvitu. 33 games, nine points.
After finishing his contract with the Oilers, Auvitu returned to Europe. Now 36 years old, he has spent the past eight seasons touring Europe, playing in Russia, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Czechia, and finally Austria, where he currently plays for Linz EHC.
Bet like a pro here with Bet99—Ontario’s go-to for elite odds and nonstop action. And outside Ontario, Canadians bet better here with Bet99—bringing top-tier odds and action from coast to coast.
Team Germany
A total of four current and former Oilers are on team Germany, the most the organization will be sending to any nation’s roster. Current Oilers Leon Draisaitl and Josh Samanski will join former Oilers Tobias Reider and Dominik Kahun in Italy.
Draisaitl is an obvious selection, as the best German-born hockey player in the world at the moment. He will be the key player for Germany in all situations. Samanski, on the other hand, was an overlooked selection. He did not have much fanfare around his selection, though it does make a ton of sense given his rising development arc. He has spent the season thus far with the Bakersfield Condors, where he has 27 points in 34 games. These two Oilers could find themselves playing together and building some future chemistry for when Samanski makes it to the NHL.
Former Oilers Kahun and Reider also both played with Draisaitl. Kahun’s time with Draisaitl dates back all the way to junior days when the two of them absolutely dominated a U16 team. Kahun had 69 goals and 206 points in 30 games while Draisaitl tallied 97 goals and 192 points in 29 games. Yes, those stats are real.
Although Kahun never quite panned out in the NHL, he has enjoyed a lengthy professional career, he did reunite with Draisaitl for the 2020–21 season in Edmonton where he had 15 points in 48 games. Kahun has since returned to Europe, where he has played in the Swiss National League.
Reider is perhaps best known for singlehandedly causing the Oilers to miss the playoffs in 2018–19 by not scoring 10–15 goals. He was also a depth forward for the Oilers for that one season after originally being a draft pick of the team in the fourth round of 2011. This will be good second Olympics, as he also participated in the 2022 tournament.
Team Slovakia
The Slovakian team for the 2026 Winter Olympics will feature two former defenders from the decade of darkness. Martin Gernat and Martin Marincin. Those are two names you probably haven’t heard in a while.
Of note with Gernat is that he never actually suited up in a game with the Oilers. He was a member of the AHL and (briefly) ECHL affiliates for three seasons after playing his junior career with the Edmonton Oil Kings. So, he was still familiar to the city at least.
Gernat was a fifth-round draft pick in 2011, and finished up his North American career in 2016. He has since become a prominent offensive defender across various European leagues, settling in for the last few seasons with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl in the KHL. He also participated in the 2022 Olympics, where he had two points in seven games.
Marincin had a bit more success in North America, with a nearly 10 year career across two teams, the Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs, and their AHL affiliates. The second-round pick in 2010 of the Oilers bounced around between Edmonton and the Oklahoma City Barons, the then AHL affiliate, over four seasons. He played 85 games with the Oilers, tallying 11 points. After six seasons in the Maple Leafs organization, he returned to Europe to play with Trinec Ocelari HC in the Czech League, where he has played the past five seasons. His team won back-to-back-to-back championships from 2021 to 2024.
Should there have been more Oilers at the Olympics?
You’d think a perennial Stanley Cup Contenders would be sending more than two players to the Olympics, right? That is why there are a handful of other Oilers that have very strong cases to have made their respective country’s Olympic roster.
For Team Canada, the most obvious snub is defender Evan Bouchard. He is in the top tier of offensive defenders just behind would-be teammate Cale Makar. Despite some blatant defensive gaffes, Bouchard almost always has a significantly positive impact on the game and is one of the most clutch defensive scorers in NHL history.
Next up is Zach Hyman. He could be on this team on his own merit, as one of the top scorers eligible for Team Canada. But there is also the chemistry argument that would see him go to play on McDavid’s wing, a similar situation to Chris Kunitz joining Sidney Crosby in the past.
And of course, although he would be a longshot, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. He was on the selection committee’s radar and participated in team camps over the offseason, but his experience, reliability, and two-way play with the potential for a scoring outburst put him in the conversation to have made it over someone like Anthony Cirelli.
Moving over to Team Sweden, the biggest omission was defender Mattias Ekholm. He may have lost some of his standing after a rough second half of last season, hampered by an illness in the 4 Nations Face-Off and a severe injury shortly after, but he is most certainly one of the top Swedish defenders.
And lastly on Team Finland, one could make a strong case for Kasperi Kapanen. The grinding, energetic winger would have been an excellent addition to the depth of the Finnish team, but he was not selected. Possibly due to missing most of this season due to injury.
Do you think more Oilers could have made the Olympic teams? Drop a comment down below!
One Comment