Besides Kakko and Tolvanen, Kraken netminder Philipp Grubauer will make his Winter Olympics debut for Team Germany while Kraken AHL prospect and sometimes first-year NHL forward Oscar Fisker Molgaard will suit up for Denmark. Of the Kraken quartet, Tolvanen has the only Olympic experience from the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games at age 18 in which he registered nine points in five matchups and made the tournament all-star team.

But that wasn’t yet a best-on-best scenario.

“It means a lot,” Tolvanen said of this year’s inclusion alongside top NHL talents. “I think every kid in Finland dreams about playing for the national team, and especially for the Olympics, it being best-on-best hockey.”

Finland opens the men’s tournament Wednesday morning against Slovakia, followed by Team USA debuting Thursday at noon against Latvia. Grubauer and Fisker Molgaard will also make Olympic debuts at that same time as Germany and Denmark square-off.

The U.S. hasn’t won Winter Olympics gold since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” at Lake Placid and prevailed one prior time in 1960 at Squaw Valley. In fact, the U.S. had never won any other top global men’s competition – not counting the world juniors – in 92 years until capturing last spring’s IIHF World Hockey Championship in Sweden with a roster that included current Kraken players Joey Daccord and Matty Beniers and trainer Jeff Camelio.

But Team USA is largely expected to compete for gold in Milan, based off last spring’s world championship and the strong 4 Nations Face-Off showing. Americans continue to pour into the NHL at record levels, and the U.S. team has a strong contingent of stars led by captain Auston Matthews, brothers Matthew and Brady Tkachuk, Jack Eichel, Quinn Hughes and goalie Connor Hellebuyck.

Winter Olympic playoff qualification rounds begin Feb. 17, with quarterfinals Feb. 18, semifinals on Feb. 20, the bronze medal game Feb. 21 and gold medal contest Feb. 22.

Games will be played across two venues, with main competition at the new and somewhat controversial Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena – a facility with an ice surface that came in more than three feet shorter than NHL versions and was still racing to complete construction last week after initial work was delayed by a year. A secondary Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena will also host games.

The women’s event opened last week with Team USA and Team Canada widely expected to play in the Feb. 19 gold medal game. The U.S. boasts four Seattle Torrent players in Hilary Knight, Alex Carpenter, Hannah Bilka and Cayla Barnes, while Julia Gosling plays for Canada and Aneta Tejralova for Czechia.

When Grubauer and Fisker Molgaard open their tournaments next Thursday, they’ll both be savoring the Olympic experience for the first time but from vastly different perspectives. Grubauer, 34, is a decade long NHL veteran while Fisker Molgaard, 20, only debuted this season and has played just three Kraken games.

The call that Fisker Molgaard had made the Olympic roster, from Danish general manager Morton Green, fulfilled a hockey dream he’d willed into existence through sacrifice and determination.