Two players from the Nashville Predators have been selected to represent their home country in the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina in 2026.
Captain and defenseman Roman Josi will represent Switzerland and goaltender Juuse Saros will represent Finland during the Olympics’ hockey events. The 12 countries participating have named their first six players and Josi and Saros are the only Predators players named so far.
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The other 10 teams participating in the Olympics in 2016 will be Canada, United States, Sweden, Slovakia, Germany, Latvia, Czechia, Italy, France, and Denmark. The remaining players for each roster will be named later this year.
This is the first time since 2014 that NHL players have been cleared to participate in the Olympics. The tournament will start with preliminary games on Feb. 11 with the gold medal game scheduled for Feb. 22.
Josi, 35, has played in 86 games for Switzerland, scoring 13 goals and 37 assists over nine years of international play. His last international appearance was at the IIHF’s World Championship in 2024, where he led Switzerland to a silver medal.
Saros, 30, has appeared in 12 games for Finland, most recently at the World Championship in 2025, where he led Finland to a third place finish in Group A. Saros also started for Finland’s gold medal team at the World Junior Championship in 2014.
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Alex Daugherty is the Predators beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Alex at jdaugherty@gannett.com. Follow Alex on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @alexdaugherty1. Also check out our Predators exclusive Instagram page @tennessean_preds.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Roman Josi to represent Switzerland, Juuse Saros on Finland roster for Olympics