It\u2019s been a long, long time since NHL players had a chance to compete in the Olympic games \u2014 and in that time the international hockey landscape has changed. There\u2019s no longer a mammoth gap between Canada and the field, especially when it comes to Team USA.<\/p>\n
The strength for the 2026 side that will compete in Milan comes from its deep forechecking lines, and stellar play in goal. Connor Hellebuyck is having a bit of a down season in 2025-26, but that\u2019s more of a product of the Jets taking a step back this season. He remains the best goalie in the NHL, and can be a huge difference maker on a team with solid defense.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
These are the projected lines for Team USA in 2026.<\/p>\n
LW<\/p>\n
C<\/p>\n
RW<\/p>\n
Brady Tkachuk<\/p>\n
Jack Eichel<\/p>\n
Matthew Tkachuk<\/p>\n
Mat Boldy<\/p>\n
Auston Matthews<\/p>\n
Jake Guentzel<\/p>\n
Dylan Larkin<\/p>\n
Jack Hughes<\/p>\n
Tage Thompson<\/p>\n
Clayton Keller<\/p>\n
Vincent Trocheck<\/p>\n
J.T. Miller<\/p>\n
Reserves:<\/p>\n
Brock Nelson<\/p>\n
Kyle Conner<\/p>\n
LD<\/p>\n
RD<\/p>\n
Quinn Hughes<\/p>\n
Charlie McAvoy<\/p>\n
Zach Werenski<\/p>\n
Seth Jones<\/p>\n
Jaccob Slavin<\/p>\n
Brock Faber<\/p>\n
Reserves:<\/p>\n
Jake Sanderson<\/p>\n
Noah Hanifin<\/p>\n
Goalies<\/p>\n
Connor Hellebuyck<\/p>\n
Jake Oettinger<\/p>\n
Reserve:<\/p>\n
Jeremy Swayman<\/p>\n
The line to watch will be the No. 2 unit of Boldy\/Matthews\/Guentzel. It\u2019s a lot of scoring stacked into one unit, which will be defined by how much Matthews can play at his full potential. The big question is whether there\u2019s enough puck to go around for three natural scorers who like to be puck-dominant players.<\/p>\n
Team USA is currently at +200 to win the gold medal, narrowly behinds Team Canada at +140.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a long, long time since NHL players had a chance to compete in the Olympic games…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[532,29374,95,536,1502,1034,2154,1518,1171,595,2814,5,2685,1238,1041,1272,1331,424,1338,156,94,4,2833,1496,259,1712,3255,39,3042,2566],"class_list":{"0":"post-452076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-auston-matthews","9":"tag-boldy","10":"tag-boston-bruins","11":"tag-brady-tkachuk","12":"tag-brock-faber","13":"tag-brock-nelson","14":"tag-charlie-mcavoy","15":"tag-clayton-keller","16":"tag-connor-hellebuyck","17":"tag-dylan-larkin","18":"tag-getty-images","19":"tag-hockey","20":"tag-j-t-miller","21":"tag-jaccob-slavin","22":"tag-jack-eichel","23":"tag-jack-hughes","24":"tag-jake-guentzel","25":"tag-jake-oettinger","26":"tag-jake-sanderson","27":"tag-jeremy-swayman","28":"tag-matthew-tkachuk","29":"tag-nhl","30":"tag-noah-hanifin","31":"tag-quinn-hughes","32":"tag-seth-jones","33":"tag-tage-thompson","34":"tag-team-usa","35":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","36":"tag-vincent-trocheck","37":"tag-zach-werenski"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116040900538879044","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452076","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=452076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}