While folks around the world were putting together the night’s food spreads on New Year’s Eve, the decision-makers for teams participating in the 2026 Winter Olympics were hard at work. On Wednesday, each country announced its list of players who will be making the trip to Milan next month.
For star Blackhawks like Connor Bedard and Spencer Knight, though, their fate was sealed. The two Chicago standouts had a shot at making the cut, but were both left off the list, leaving only Teuvo Teravainen (Finland) as the Blackhawks’ representative on the international stage.
Knight started the season as perhaps the best goaltender in the league, but a few uncharacteristically poor performances lately removed him from contention. A bit less explicable, however, is the snubbing of Bedard. The 20-year-old was on a furious pace before a shoulder injury in mid-December, putting up 44 points in 31 games to be among the league leaders. Perhaps equally impressive were his improvements on the defensive side and in the faceoff circle. While he’ll never be a Selke Trophy candidate, he’s turned himself into an alright two-way forward to complement his elite scoring ability.
It’s worth noting that Team Canada representatives said that Bedard’s injury did not play a factor in his exclusion. Why, then, was he left off? He’s certainly one of the 14 best Canadian forwards in the NHL. After the news on New Year’s Day, head coach Jeff Blashill made the case why he should have made the team in what sounds like a borderline MVP argument.
“I have a ton of respect for how hard these decisions are. Honestly, Canada, the U.S., Sweden, you have a lot of really good players that you’re going to ultimately leave off these teams. The one thing I would say is, I don’t think the rest of the league knows how good of a two-way winning hockey player Connor has become…The metric that I trust is your impact on winning. The reason why I know he’s a big-time winning hockey player is when he was in our lineup, we were one point out of the wild card, and since then we’re 1-6-1. That’s the impact he’s had.”
- Jeff Blashill
For what it’s worth, the Hockey Canada GM, Doug Armstrong, is also the general manager for the Blues. Hmm…
It’s disappointing that Bedard didn’t crack the roster, but it’ll be fun to see whether this lights a fire under him. The snub will also help him be patient with letting his injury heal, helping the Blackhawks more than his home country. It just won’t be on an international stage.
