{"id":388259,"date":"2026-01-03T11:14:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/388259\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T11:14:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:14:30","slug":"avalanche-center-brock-nelson-named-to-u-s-olympic-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/388259\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche center Brock Nelson named to U.S. Olympic team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brock Nelson has earned the chance to continue a great family tradition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nelson was named to the United States hockey team Friday morning for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan. He will be a third-generation Olympian in his family. Nelson\u2019s uncle, Dave Christian, won gold in 1980 with the \u201cMiracle on Ice\u201d team at Lake Placid.<\/p>\n

His grandfather and great-uncle, Bill and Roger Christian, were members of the 1960 U.S. team that won gold in Squaw Valley, Calif. One of their brothers, Gord, won a silver medal with the 1956 U.S. team in Italy.<\/p>\n

Nelson was a marquee acquisition for the Colorado Avalanche just before the trade deadline last season, then he signed a three-year contract with the club in early June. He has been Colorado\u2019s No. 2 center since the day he arrived from Long Island after a long, productive tenure with the New York Islanders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe center ice position is such an important position,\u201d Avs coach Jared Bednar said. \u201cYou have to be a four-line team in order to win and your top six has to to be really good. If you\u2019re missing that piece, it almost doesn\u2019t matter how good your wingers are. We\u2019ve got elite wingers on our second line.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you\u2019re missing that middle piece \u2014 take (Nathan) McKinnon off the first line, put a different center there \u2014 it\u2019s not the same. If you take Nelson off the second line, put a different center there, it\u2019s not the same. You need the production out of those guys. You need them to be able to play against anybody, and you need them to be able to defend against anybody. Brock does that, and then he touches every aspect of our game \u2014 power play, penalty kill \u2014 on top of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erie native Jaccob Slavin, a Hyland Hills Jaguars, Littleton Hawks, Colorado Thunderbirds and Colorado College alum, was also named to the American squad. He will be the first Centennial State born-and-trained player to play for the U.S. men\u2019s hockey team<\/a> at the Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n

Sweden and Finland also announced its rosters Friday. Avs captain Gabe Landeskog was already named to the Swedish team in June, while Artturi Lehkonen and Joel Kiviranta will join old friend Mikko Rantanen playing for the Finns in Milan.<\/p>\n

Nelson\u2019s all-around play is a huge reason why he will play for the Americans in Northern Italy. He was on Team USA for the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off this past February, which lost to Canada in overtime in the final.<\/p>\n

His play in that short tournament, and his age \u2014 Nelson will turn 35 years old in April \u2014 led plenty of prognosticators to leave him off projected Olympic rosters for much of the past 11 months.<\/p>\n

Nelson also got off to a slow start, production-wise, in his first full season with the Avalanche. But he\u2019s been on a tear at just the right time.<\/p>\n

The rangy center has 16 goals and 30 points in 39 games for the Avs this season. He has 13 goals and 25 points in his past 23 contests, in which Colorado has gone 20-1-2.<\/p>\n

At 6-foot-4 with great skating ability, Nelson has arguably been even better on the defensive side of the puck for the Avs. Colorado has produced 61.1% of the expected goals with Nelson on the ice at 5-on-5, despite Bednar often leaning on his line to match up against the other team\u2019s top players.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s second on the team among the forwards, behind only Valeri Nichushkin, and fourth in the NHL among forwards with 300-plus minutes played at 5-on-5.<\/p>\n

Nelson is also third among the Avs\u2019 forwards in time on ice on the penalty kill, which is ranked No. 1 in the NHL at 85.7%.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s huge,\u201d Avs captain Gabe Landeskog said. \u201cHe\u2019s been so solid for us at both ends of the rink. He\u2019s been getting rewarded here with some goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can tell he\u2019s playing with a lot of confidence. It\u2019s fun to see. He\u2019s just as important to this team as anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tournament begins Feb. 11. Nelson and the Americans will face Latvia on Feb. 12, Denmark on Feb. 14 and Germany on Feb. 15 in the preliminary round.<\/p>\n

Canada, which will feature a trio of Avs \u2014 Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Devon Toews \u2014 will be looking to defend its 4 Nations crown but also win gold at the Olympics for the third straight time when NHL players participate.<\/p>\n

Want more Avalanche news? Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brock Nelson has earned the chance to continue a great family tradition. Nelson was named to the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,1034,1116,19,192,144,5277,1543,1035,5,1117,1180,1262,517,4,2602,43,3922],"class_list":{"0":"post-388259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-brock-nelson","10":"tag-cale-makar","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-colorado","13":"tag-colorado-avalanche","14":"tag-coloradoavalanche","15":"tag-devon-toews","16":"tag-gabe-landeskog","17":"tag-hockey","18":"tag-jared-bednar","19":"tag-latest-headlines","20":"tag-more-avalanche-news","21":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","22":"tag-nhl","23":"tag-olympics","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-valeri-nichushkin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115830879922070775","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}