Nearly three weeks into the season and the NHL is starting to find its rhythm. Players are back to the grind that is the regular season: travel, four games in seven nights and a healthy dose of on-ice and video sessions. Coaches inundated with detail and a constant desire to improve. It is, looking and feeling like business as usual.

That business mostly consists of thirty-two teams vying for the Stanley Cup. But what can also be true, is that for the first time in a dozen years, it’s not the only symbol of hockey supremacy up for grabs. 

For the first time since 2014, NHL players will have the chance to compete and represent their home country at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan. That news provided its own initial excitement when it was first publicly addressed in Toronto at the 2024 All-Star Weekend but the excitement was intensified this summer when each country announced the first six players of their respective teams. Needless to say, there was a certain buzz around locker rooms in the opening weeks of the season.

Olympic Chatter Commonplace in Locker room

“It’s always a topic,” said Oilers’ German forward, Leon Draisaitl. “I think guys that are in the running for it or have the chance are excited about it. Obviously, it’s been  a lot of years since the NHL players have gone, so for a lot of players it will be the first time and that obviously creates a lot of excitement.”

Mattias Ekholm, a teammate of Draisaitl with the Oilers, might not have been one of the first six announced for his home country of Sweden, but has a chance to try and carve out a spot and be part of the excitement and chance to highlight the game. 

“Everybody saw the games and what type of hockey we can showcase to the world,” said Ekholm. “I think the Olympics is going to be something special for whoever goes there. It seems like the 4Nations was just a warmup. I think the Olympics will be even another level to it. It’s for sure something that’s exciting.”

Of the seventy-two players announced to their respective nations in June, only four current NHL talents competed in the 2022 Winter games in Beijing—Rodrigo Abols and Uvis Balinskis of Latvia and Simon Nemec and Juraj Slafkovsky of Slovakia. Among the veteran NHLer’s returning to the Olympic stage for the first time since Sochi is Sidney Crosby. The Canadian Penguins’ forward earned a pair of gold medals at the games and had the game-winning tally in Vancouver in 2010.

“I think all that stuff helps,” said Crosby on the boost Olympic excitement can bring to players early on. “I think winning is probably the best, but as far as the energy and I think, just healthy competition when it comes to spots in the lineup, I think that’s something that can give us a spark.”

Any spark, buzz or lift in energy is welcomed, especially by a head coach, but the focus remains balanced between NHL club and national team early on—even for one Olympic-bound.

“There are discussions about the opportunities and what the tournament is going to be like and potential possible players,” said John Hynes, head coach of the Minnesota Wild and assistant for Team USA. “I would say for the most part, at least in our building and our room, it’s more focused on what we’re doing. I would assume as the season goes on, there might be more chatter about it.”

That chatter only figures to get louder from locker room to locker room and beyond as the calendar turns on October next week. Yet another step closer to a long-awaited and evidently, much-anticipated opportunity.