The official announcement for the USA men’s Olympic roster is set for today, but Michael Russo of The Athletic reported yesterday what the roster would look like. Remember that teams can bring 14 forwards, eight defencemen, and three goalies, so there are extra spots compared to the Four Nations rosters. With that said, there isn’t much changing here:
If this is indeed the roster, team USA is bringing eight forwards who are regular centres or who have often played it, like Thompson. It leaves little room for wingers, which is how names like Jason Robertson, Cole Caufield, and Alex DeBrincat remain off the roster. My personal belief is that roster needs room for at least Robertson, if not both he and DeBrincat, but here we are.
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Team Canada made their official announcements and here are the changes from the Four Nations roster:
There are maybe some quibbles but I won’t argue here. Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel are tremendous together, Wilson may not even dress, and Horvat is very underrated, goal-scoring aside. There will be lots of time to talk about Connor Bedard, Evan Bouchard, or Mackenzie Blackwood in the coming weeks. For me, I would make a change or two, but there’s no outright snub that I find particularly egregious.
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Steven Stamkos scored his 600th career goal (PP) while Michael Bunting (PP), Nick Perbix, and Reid Schaefer also scored in Nashville’s 4-2 win Vegas. Luke Evangelista had a pair of assists (one PP) and a pair of shots, and that pushes him to 19 points and 44 shots in his last 18 games.
Stamkos becomes just the 22nd player all time to score 600 goals, another monster milestone from him as the first-ballot Hall of Famer had a great December.
Justus Annunen got the start for the Predators, stopping 29 of 31 shots against in the win.
Mark Stone (PP) and Ben Hutton both scored for Vegas, and both goals were assisted by Pavel Dorofeyev. With 13 assists on the season, Dorofeyev just need five more to surpass his total from last year.
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Tom Wilson showed off why he’s going to the Olympics by scoring twice, adding an assist, registering four shots, five PIMs, and a hit in Washington’s 6-3 win over the New York Rangers. Justin Sourdif scored twice (once on the PP) while Anthony Beauvillier also tallied.
In 83 games over the regular season in calendar 2025, Wilson finished 40 goals, 38 assists, and 222 hits. When a player is that unique is scoring that much, it does seem really hard to leave him off the Olympic Roster.
Charlie Lindgren earned the win, holding the Rangers to three goals on 25 shots.
Adam Fox was back in the lineup for New York, scoring a power-play goal and assist on a marker from Four Nations teammate Vincent Trocheck. Braden Schneider had the other tally.
Jonathan Quick got the start for the Rangers and gave up five goals on 26 shots.
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We have reached 2026, and there is so much to look forward to – the men’s and women’s Olympic tournaments, an incredible Eastern Conference playoff race, one of the best free agent classes in recent memory the Artemi Panarin sweepstakes – that the next six months are a tremendous time to be a hockey fan.
Before looking too far ahead, let’s take a quick spin through 2025 to see some of the top performers for the year. All data is taken from Natural Stat Trick and is current as of the morning of December 31st, 2025. We are using an ice-time cut-off of 800 minutes for forwards and 900 minutes for defencemen.
Macklin Celebrini (San Jose Sharks)
Here are the top 10 forwards by points per 60 minutes at all strengths in calendar 2025:
There aren’t really many surprises on the list, and we know how good Celebrini has been in the first half of the 2025-26 season, but being a top-10 point producer despite turning just 19 years old in June is something else. A couple days ago, someone asked me if Celebrini is a top-5 player in the league and while I think he has some work to do defensively to put himself in that lofty of a conversation, if he has a second half of this season like the first season he just had, he might be a top-5 fantasy pick in September.
Matt Boldy (Minnesota Wild)
Here are the nine forwards in our sample who are one standard deviation above average by goals per 60 minutes, assists per 60 minutes, and shots per 60 minutes:
At this point of Boldy’s career, his production in any single area isn’t among the truly elite, but the goals, assists, and shots are all high-end, and that kind of high-end across-the-board production is what makes him such a coveted fantasy option. It is also notable that he’s on pace to push close to, or past, 60 blocked shots again, so there is some peripheral value here too, even if he doesn’t rack up the hits. We can probably pencil him in for 30 goals and 75 points for years to come, the question is if he can reach that next tier and have multiple 40-goal, 100-point seasons like teammate Kirill Kaprizov.
Darren Raddysh (Tampa Bay Lightning)
Considering that Raddysh was not drafted even as a top-100 fantasy defenceman in one-year leagues, he might be the first-half fantasy MVP among all skaters, not just defencemen. But this good production goes back to last season, as he had 23 points in the final 40 games of the 2024-25 regular season while skating under 18 minutes a night. Put that with the first half of the 2025-26 season, and Raddysh is among the leaders in points per 60 minutes for calendar 2025:
The real question arises when Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh are healthy and in the lineup. Raddysh may still take top PP minutes, and that matters a lot, but if those two are in the lineup every night, and with how JJ Moser is playing, Raddysh will be very hard-pressed to maintain the heavy minutes he’s had over the last 25 games. But as long as he gets meaningful minutes, this rate of production will keep him a name to follow in fantasy.
There are two defencemen in the sample to be above the league average by goals, assists, shots, and hits+blocks per 60 minutes:
It probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise that Seider is one of these names. It has been a few seasons now that he’s been one of the top multi-cat defencemen in fantasy, but it’s always something to see that he’s in a company of basically his own. What separates him from Walman is that Seider gets heavy minutes – currently his second season in a row with at least 25 minutes a game – and that level of ice time provides such a high floor for both his production and his peripherals. The one concern is whether he ever loses his top PP role because nearly half his assists over the last 2.5 seasons (46/94) are with the man advantage, but as long as he holds onto that, he’s a top-10 defenceman in any fantasy league counting more than just goals and assists.
Seeing Walman’s name here should highlight the upside he has, but it also highlights why he’ll be in tough to reach it. In Edmonton, when he’s healthy, Walman will be playing behind Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, and probably Darnell Nurse at even strength, and behind Bouchard on the power play. He is still fantasy relevant because he’s good across-the-board with just 20 minutes a night and secondary PP time, but there is another level here in the right situation, it’s just not in Edmonton.
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Happy New Year to all of the Dobber Hockey/Prospects readers! Hope everyone has been able to enjoy their holidays, and all the best from all of us to all of you in 2026.